RoboHelp Tip: Creating Reusable Text Using Variables

My RoboHelp tip this month is a work-around for RoboHelp's lack of support for reusable text.

Have you ever found yourself writing the same note or step over and over in a document? That's pretty common. Today, in RoboHelp, each time you insert that same chunk of text you create another place that has to be updated if the text changes and you increase the chances of editing one instance of the text without editing the others.

What if you created a variable for the text and then inserted the variable where you needed to repeat the text? Variables are a new feature of RoboHelp 6. They allow you to put placeholders in your text that get populated with a value, either the default value or an override value entered through the single-source layout.

Inserting the text as a variable would give you one place to go and make edits to the text--the variable.

Here's how it works...

(1) Identify the text that you want to reuse elsewhere in your help system.

(2) Turn the text into a variable.

(3) Insert the variable where you want to reuse the text.

You can insert the variable pretty much anywhere in the topic as you can see from the following graphic. The variable takes on the formatting of the style where you insert it (paragraph, list item, table cell, drop-down link, hyperlink, etc.).

Notes

Variable values are limited to 255 characters and they can only be made up of unformatted text. You can't have graphics, special formatting, or multiple paragraphs in the variable. Keep in mind that you can copy the variable file to other projects.