eHelp RoboHelp

Creating External Jumps

The advantage online help has over printed manuals is the ability to quickly jump from one piece of information to another using help hotspots, even if that information is stored in a different help file. Help hotspots are links that are created from either text or a graphic. One type of help hotspot is called an external jump, and it simply jumps from the current help topic to another help topic located in a different help file. Before you create the external jump, you need to know the topic ID for the target topic.

Note

When using external jumps, be careful of the directory structure that contains help files. A change in the directory structure can break external jumps. For this reason, it's good practice to keep all finished help files in the same directory, both when you're developing the projects and when they are installed onto a user's computer. Keeping the files in the same directory reduces the chances for help files to be moved around.

To create an external jump:

In Word, select the text or graphic you want to use as the link.
Right-click and select Insert Help Jump... from the popup.

The Insert Help Hotspot dialog box appears. Use this dialog box to define general link properties.
Select "External Topic" from the Action Type: drop down.
Click the Open button to the right of the Help File: field (following figure).
Specify the help file to which the external jump will link.
Enter the topic within the help project you want to link to in the Topic: list.

You can also type the topic ID for the topic you want to use in the field above the list, or copy and paste the topic ID from the other help project if it is opened in RoboHelp.
Specify how the help hotspot should look in the Appearance: drop down.

I usually select "No Color" for a variety of reasons that I don't want to get into here. You can use "Normal" if you have specified the color for jumps in the project settings.
Click OK.

RoboHelp creates the external jump, underlining the text users will click on. If you have Word set up to display hidden text, you can see the phrase "!JumpID" followed by the name of the help file and the topic ID enclosed in parentheses. From here, you can format the help hotspot text any way you want.