This article describes how to install RoboHelp 6 and upgrade projects from earlier versions. It also covers how to protect your projects if you do not use source control software. The article has also been published on Adobe's website.
Although RoboHelp is a very simple program to install, you must adhere to its specific requirements. In this article I describe how to install RoboHelp correctly and in accordance with the license agreement.
For existing users who are upgrading, I explain how to upgrade your projects.
Finally, I describe what you need to do to make sure that when things go wrong, such as your hard disk crashing, you can easily get going again.
After explaining how to install RoboHelp, I assume you have an existing project that you want to use with RoboHelp 6. I also assume that you do not want to protect it using source control software, or that you will be using the new RoboSource Control 3 software, which is covered in Matthew Ellison's article in the Adobe RoboHelp Developer Center.
This section covers some very important points to ensure your copy of RoboHelp works properly.
Before you install RoboHelp 6, it is recommended that you uninstall your earlier version or the evaluation version. Whilst RoboHelp 6 can be installed side by side with earlier versions, single installation is recommended. There are some things that you need to be aware of and these are covered in detail in the Getting Started Guide that accompanies boxed versions of RoboHelp. They are summarised here:
Volume Licensing Agreements allow RoboHelp 6 to be installed on the number of PCs specified in the license agreement and activation is not required.
All other license agreements are specific to one user per license but that permits installation on a second PC for the same user provided both PCs are not in concurrent use. Activation is required as described below.
With both types of licence, RoboHelp must be installed with the login of the designated user. That user must have local administrative rights on their PC at the time of installation. This does not require your systems administrator to breach any company policy about your rights on an ongoing basis. These rights are just required during installation and, in the case of RoboHelp for Word, the first time that you use the program. These are all steps that your systems administrator can oversee while you perform them and your rights can be restored afterwards to whatever level meets the policy.
It is vital that your systems administrator does not install RoboHelp using their own login, thinking that it already has the required rights and will be OK for installation purposes. While RoboHelp may appear to install correctly, it will not be long before you realise that you cannot perform certain vital tasks.
RoboHelp must be installed on the hard disk of the user's PC. It is important to note that RoboHelp 6 cannot be installed on an application server, even for your own exclusive use. Quite apart from that being a breach of the license, the login requirement referred to in "What your license permits" will mean that it will not run correctly. Performance will be sluggish and data corruption is possible. Some functions simply will not work.
You must install the required version of Microsoft Word before installing RoboHelp. RoboHelp 6 will work with Microsoft Word 2000, XP and 2003. RoboHelp 6 can be installed on a PC without any version of Word but you will only be able to use RoboHelp HTML, not RoboHelp for Word. You will not be able to import Word documents or create printed documentation.
Note: RoboHelp 6 is not compatible with Microsoft Word 2007.
Unlike previous versions of RoboHelp, RoboHelp 6 can be installed alongside earlier versions where this is required and provided you have full licenses for both versions. If you upgraded from an earlier version, you are not entitled to continue using the previous version. To run more than one version, you must buy a full license for RoboHelp 6 in addition to your existing license. Do not work on any one project in more than one version, as the later version may make changes not compatible with the earlier version.
Dual installation is only designed to cover situations where different authors have different versions available to them, or where contract authors have to work in different versions for different clients. It is not recommended for most users as once you open a project from an earlier version using RoboHelp 6, it will not be possible to open it again in the earlier version other than through non-recommended and unsupported methods, which will not always work!
The first time that you insert the installation CD, you will be given the option to choose RoboHelp 6, Adobe Acrobat Elements, RoboSource Control 3, or any combination thereof. Simply choose the combination you require and continue. Each application will be installed in turn.
There will be a separate CD for the web administrator if you are going to install RoboHelp Server 6 (formerly RoboHelp Office Pro and the RoboEngine).This is covered in John Daigle's article in the Adobe RoboHelp Developer Center.
You do not need to install Adobe Acrobat Elements if you have Adobe Acrobat Version 7 or higher installed, as RoboHelp 6 will work with either version.
Users with an earlier version (Adobe Acrobat Version 6 or lower) will need to consider how they want to work.
When installing earlier versions of RoboHelp, any installed options were grayed out. In RoboHelp 6, all options will be enabled; but if you choose to install an existing option, that will be detected and the installed options will then be greyed out.
After installation, you will find new icons on your desktop. Instead of the Startup icon that was in earlier versions and which is still available from the Windows Start Menu, you will find separate icons for RoboHelp 6 HTML, RoboHelp 6 for Word and, if installed, RoboSource Control 3 Explorer.
After installing your selections, when you first run RoboHelp, you will be prompted to activate it. The easiest way to do this is online, and it only takes a few moments. If for any reason you cannot activate online, then contact Customer Services using the contact details for your location. You must activate RoboHelp within thirty days of installing it or it will no longer run.
If RoboHelp 6 is installed on a second PC, you will also need to activate that installation. You will be able to install RoboHelp 6 on further PCs but it is only possible to have two activated copies at any one time so you will need to deactivate one installation as described in the next section.
Note that under Volume Licensing Agreements, activation is not required so this part of the procedure is not necessary. For all other installations, this procedure is new to RoboHelp 6 and it is very important that it is followed.
All earlier versions simply required that if you wanted to transfer the license on to another person when, for example, you moved to another role, then you simply uninstalled it from your PC and installed it on the new user's PC, making sure the new user used their login and had the correct rights at the time of installation.
Prior to uninstalling RoboHelp 6 from your PC, you must now select the Help menu and select Transfer Activation. Unless this procedure is followed, you will not be able to activate RoboHelp 6 on more than two PCs. If for some reason activation is not transferred, for example someone leaves the company and their PC is reformatted without transferring activation, you will need to contact your local Adobe office.
Additional information about activation can be found at http://www.adobe.com/products/activation/
It is important that you do not use RoboHelp.dot from earlier versions as none are compatible with RoboHelp 6. If you have amended the supplied styles or created your own, you can add them to the new template using the Organizer within Microsoft Word. How that is done will vary according to your version of Microsoft Word but it is described in the Microsoft Word online help.
Following those procedures, RoboHelp is a very simple program to install.
When you buy a new car, you do not take it straight out onto a ten-lane highway during the busiest period of the day with your family on board (I hope!). I think you would first familiarise yourself with the new controls and features. Do the same with any software before opening up something with hours, weeks, or months of work invested in it
Create a small test project and try things out in that. Take a look at What's New in the online help and give the features a test drive. It is also a lot easier to understand the new features without the weight of material in your existing project. Once you are happy that you understand the new features, there is just one more step before you open your existing project: make a backup copy. While many projects were used during the testing of this version, it is always possible that you or one of your predecessors customised your project in a way that cannot be anticipated and a problem arises. By creating a backup copy, you are protecting yourself against that scenario. When I upgrade any software that works on important files, I zip up the old source files and add something like "final_copy_pre_rh_version_nn".
With that precaution, point RoboHelp 6 to any existing project and open it, no matter what version of RoboHelp it was created in. Each version of RoboHelp is designed to handle projects created in any earlier version.
Take a look at the various folders in Project Manager to see that all the old familiar features are there. Check any build tags you may have used are still present. In short, satisfy yourself that so far, everything is as you expect.
Next, generate new outputs and test those to ensure that everything is as it was before. It is unlikely to be otherwise, but this is about you being reasurred that it is the case. Are you happy the output is doing what it did before? OK, so that is like knowing that the new car does what the old one did. Now it is time to start using the new features. Enjoy!
If your company requires you to use source control to protect your work, skip this section. Otherwise it is important that you take sensible precautions.
RoboHelp is designed to work with projects stored on the hard disk of your PC. It is important you do not work on projects across a network. Those who frequent the Adobe RoboHelp Forums know that this is a common source of problems. Users of source control are, in fact, transferring the files to their hard disk while they work by checking in and out the required files from a database stored on a network drive. At the end of the day, those files are checked back in and the company's backup procedures protect them.
Where source control is not used, your company's backup procedures are not likely to cover what is on your hard disk. For that reason, the source material is at risk. If your systems administrator advises you that holding your content on your hard disk is a breach of company policy, then you must explain that there is no option on this if you are to avoid the risk of corrupting your work. What you need to agree upon is a method of ensuring your work is backed up to the satisfaction of the systems administrator. My own procedure is to simply zip archive any folder containing a project that I have worked on, add the date to the zip file name, and transfer it to an archive folder on the network. By using this system I have many versions to which I can roll back. Show this article to your systems administrator so that they understand the issue and work with you.
Follow these procedures and RoboHelp will enable you to create online help
and printed documents to be proud of.
If remembering to back up your projects concerns you, there are many inexpensive
utilities available to automate the process.
If you have any questions that are not covered in this article, contact your vendor or Adobe or post to the RoboHelp forum.
Date |
Changes to this page |
| 04 Mar 2007 | Typos corrected. |
25 Feb 2007 |
New topic. |