Key details
RoboHelp training course for beginners, teaching key techniques for developing professional-standard online help in a variety of formats.
Introduction to RoboHelp training is arranged on-request, i.e. one-to-one training or a ‘closed course’ for your group. Your training can be tailored to take into account any existing knowledge you have, and the work you’re going to be doing.
In-class or online
This course is available in-class at eight centres or live online.
Expert trainers
RoboHelp courses are hosted by expert trainers from a technical authoring background with vast experience of using the application professionally. For further details, see Expert trainers.
How will I learn?
RoboHelp training is hands-on and practical.
There is plenty of time to ask questions, and you can take away all the files you create.
Training guide and certificate
Course delegates receive:
- A comprehensive training guide for RoboHelp, to refer to throughout the course, and to use as a refresher afterwards.
- An e-certificate confirming successful course completion. Click here to see an example of the certificate you receive.
After course support
Following RoboHelp training, delegates are entitled to 30 days’ email support from their RoboHelp trainer to help with any post-course issues. For further details, see Support.
RoboHelp version
Training is available on any recent version of RoboHelp, running on Windows or Mac.
Prerequisites
Delegates should be familiar with Windows and basic word processing techniques. No prior RoboHelp knowledge is necessary.
General information
Course times
Standard course times are 9.30am–4.30pm.
As we’d be hosting this as a ‘closed course’ for you/your group, there’s usually flexibility to change these times to suit you, e.g. start or end 30 minutes earlier or later.
Payment
Payment for RoboHelp training can be made by:
- Bank transfer. Please call 01527 834783 for our bank details.
- Card. All major credit and debit cards accepted. Payment can be made securely online or over the phone. Card payments are processed by Stripe. Armada doesn’t record or store your card details.
Purchase orders
We accept purchase orders from UK-registered companies and public sector organisations.
Accommodation
See Accommodation local to our training centres.
Cancellations and postponements
If an on-request Introduction to RoboHelp course booking is cancelled giving less than 20 working days’ notice, a cancellation fee is payable. View cancellation terms.
If an on-request Introduction to RoboHelp course booking is postponed giving less than 20 working days’ notice, a postponement fee is payable. View postponement terms.
Terms and conditions
Expert trainers
Introduction to RoboHelp training courses are hosted by:
Lynne Telfer
Lynne Telfer is highly experienced instructor with over 25 years’ experience working as a professional trainer.
In the late nineties, Lynne worked for Adobe as a trainer and consultant, hosting courses in FrameMaker and other applications at all levels for Adobe’s clients. She’s provided training in Adobe’s Technical Communication and Creative applications ever since.
Lynne has expert knowledge of:
- Adobe FrameMaker – both Unstructured and Structured use.
- Adobe RoboHelp.
- Adobe Creative Cloud applications: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat.
- Adobe’s e-Learning tools – Captivate and Presenter.
- Microsoft Office suite of applications, covering the mainstream applications Word, Excel and PowerPoint to advanced level.
Lynne has a BA Hons in Educational Practice from Oxford Brookes University.
David Rose
David Rose is an Adobe Certified Instructor (ACI) and an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) in RoboHelp.
David began working as a technical author in 1989, joining Armada’s in-house authoring team in 1992.
He began using RoboHelp soon after, and it has been his tool-of-choice for online help development and single-source projects ever since.
As Armada’s longest-serving member of staff, David is a key member of our training team. He places a strong emphasis on staying in tune with current industry standards and applications, to ensure that the approach he takes with his projects and training courses are the most appropriate and up-to-date.
Nigel Platts
Nigel is a Co-Founder of Armada Technical Authors with over thirty five years’ experience in user-assistance in a wide range of roles including Technical Writer, Manager, Consultant and Trainer.
Nigel continues to undertake projects from time to time to keep up-to-date with the latest technologies and practices. His areas of expertise include software for local government, accountancy and finance.
Course content
Setting the scene
- Introduction and course objectives
- RoboHelp technology overview
- Why good online help is important
Getting started with RoboHelp
- RoboHelp files and formats
- RoboHelp resources
- Starting a new project
- Opening an existing RoboHelp project
Understanding the interface
- Ribbon tabs and pods
- Rearranging pods and panes
- Using workspaces
- Using the multi-tab editing pane
Working with topics
- Opening and editing a topic
- Saving a project and its topics
- Adding and deleting topics
- Using headers and footers
- Using the tag list
- Using link view and topic preview
Navigation
- Navigation strategies
- Creating a table of contents
- Creating an index
- Creating a glossary
Generating WebHelp
- Understanding the help output options
- Generating a WebHelp system
Generating HTML Help and Responsive HTML5
- Generating HTML Help (CHM)
- Adjusting HTML Help window properties
- Generating Responsive HTML5 Summary
Adding media
- Comparing image file formats
- Inserting images, multimedia and Captivate
Hyperlinks
- Types of RoboHelp hypertext links
- Creating text links
- Using bookmarks
- Creating pop-ups
- Creating drop-down and expanding links
Developing topics
- Image maps
- Working with tables
- Spell checking
Master pages and style sheets
- Comparing master pages and style sheets
- Using master pages
- Summarising style sheets
Settings and properties
- Advanced project and RoboHelp settings
- Adjusting topic properties
- Summarising WebHelp skins
Conditional build tags
- Creating a conditional build tag
- Defining a conditional build expression
- Applying a build tag
Snippets and user‑defined variables
- Understanding reusable, variable content
- Using snippets
- Variable sets
- Creating and inserting a user-defined variable
- Updating a user defined variable
Styles and style sheets
- Advantages of using style sheets
- Creating paragraph styles and character styles
- Creating table styles
- Creating list styles
- Overview of multi-level, hyperlink, image and div styles
Generating printed documentation
- Quickly generating a Word document
- Generating a good-looking Word guide
- Improving the headers and footers
- Producing a PDF file
Developing WebHelp skins
- Understanding skins
- Creating sophisticated skins
- Generating WebHelp with multiple content categories
Importing files
- Advice for efficient importing
- Importing an HTML file
- Importing a Word document
Context-sensitive help (CSH)
- Author and developer roles
- Creating map files for HTML Help
- Assigning Map IDs
- Testing CSH
- Making WebHelp context-sensitive
Enhancing topics
- Creating breadcrumbs
- Using related topics links
- Making inline glossary expandable items
- Inserting a Topic ToC
- Fixing broken links
- Adding a twisty to drop-downs
Track Changes and reviewing
- Track Changes overview
- Review pane overview
- Creating PDFs for reviewing
- Importing edited PDFs
Dynamic effects
- Dynamic HTML special effects
Live online training
Online training lets you participate in a live RoboHelp course from your place of work or home.
We do everything possible to make your online training experience as close as possible to actually being in the classroom. You can:
- See and hear our trainer, and the other delegates participating in the course…
- Watch our trainer demonstrate techniques in RoboHelp.
- Interact by speaking, using chat, or raising your ‘virtual hand’ if you need assistance.
- Share your screen with our trainer, and allow them to take control to explain something.
Like our in-class courses, online Introduction to RoboHelp courses…
- Are presented by expert instructors.
- Give you plenty of opportunity to carry out assisted, practical exercises using RoboHelp.
- Offer 30 days’ email support from your trainer.
All you need is an Internet-connected computer with…
If there’s anything you’re not sure about we’ll do our best to help you. We won’t, however, be able to assist with your RoboHelp installation.
We provide everything else…
- Links to download the files, resources, etc. you’ll use in your course.
- A training guide. For most courses, you can choose from a printed copy that we post to you, or a PDF.
In the week before your course, we’ll send you an email containing everything you need to prepare for and participate in the training. Then, a couple of days before your course, we’ll give you a courtesy call to make sure you have everything in place and answer any questions you may have.
Please note that we are not able to record scheduled online courses for privacy reasons.
When you attend live online training, you’re participating in a real course, hosted by a real trainer, in real time
“Lynne is such a great trainer. She's patient and knowledgeable and knows how to keep the training session engaging. Software training has the potential to be boring, difficult, and ineffective, but Lynne made it a great 3 days for all involved. ”
Mikey C
“A fantastic course delivered by an engaging and interesting trainer. As a complete newbie, I feel that I can now easily use the application to the company standard. Please pass my many thanks on to Lynne! ”
Donna M
“Thank you for the RoboHelp training course, it was very helpful!”
Usman A
“I have attended a two-day course with David Rose for RoboHelp, which was very interesting and helpful. I have learned new skills and techniques which will be useful for me in the upcoming project will be doing. Thank You.”
Reshma T
“First class delivery, excellent class setup and superb depth of knowledge - both on the platform and the wider industry and standard practices.”
Ronan C
“Quite intensive, valuable knowledge, very useful.”
Noreen R
“Just wanted to drop a note to say thank you for the course yesterday. I found it really useful and informative, and whilst I had an objective to fulfill you have given me lots to think about as to how we could utilise this in other areas.”
Lee C
“The exercises were most helpful, they ensured that each topic was understood.”
Susan W
“Pace and delivery of course was perfect for the group we had. Trainer responded well to questions and made time to support those in deed of further support/clarification during the three days. Very effective.”
Prity L
“Every important aspect that I wanted to be covered in this training session was covered.”
Carine T
“Good overall introduction conducted at a nice pace. Seemed to cover most used areas of Robohelp.”
Adam B
“Nigel was a great trainer and we found real benefit from his past experience on other projects that we can use in ours.”
Abbey H
“Really impressed with the training, David explained everything really well, was very patient with answering our questions and showed a real passion for the system!”
Rebecca K
“David's approach to training the subject - of which he is clearly an expert - meant we were allowed plenty of time to ask questions and make the course relevant to our specific work.”
Rachel T
“I thought David was brilliant. Very informative and made me feel comfortable to ask questions. I'm not the quickest person to learn, but I didn't feel this was an issue. He went at a pace that suited all four of us who were doing the training.”
Rebecca R
“Excellent training - gave us lots to think about.”
Barbara R
Introduction to RoboHelp training
23/07/2018
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