Splitting long documents using Master Documents

In the previous scenario the mentioned 10-page document is easily split by creating a Master Document in Microsoft Word and then creating many (20) sub-documents, each of which becomes a Help topic.

Note: The following technique can be accomplished in any Word version. This tip is demonstrated using Word 97 (Word Version 8). Word 2000 (Version 9), however, will not allow RoboHTML to import Word 2000 documents directly. Each Word 2000 document must be individually opened and saved as "Compact HTML" and imported into RoboHTML as an HTML document. See RoboHELP Tip - November 1999 for more details.

Try this:

  1. Launch Microsoft Word and open a copy of the document you wish to convert/import into RoboHTML.

  2. Choose View: Outline. The Outlining Toolbar appears on the screen.

  3. Click the #3 button (below center) to show Heading Styles 1-3 (these become your new topics). Your document looks similar to the drop down example below:
    10-page document

  4. Click the Master Document View button (below right) to create a Master Document.

  5. Next, highlight the heading you want to convert into a sub-document. Careful you don't select all the subheadings below Heading 1.

     

  6. Click the Sub-document button on the Outlining toolbar .

  7. Microsoft Word creates a sub-document (Word document) from the selected text with the same name as the heading after you press Save. The document now appears with the sub-document icon to the left of the plus sign.

  8. The file created on your computer looks like:

  9. Continue highlighting each heading in the document and press the Sub-document button until all headings have been changed into sub-documents.

  10. When finished, choose File: Save. You are ready to import the individual document files into RoboHTML.

  11. Next, open your project in RoboHTML.

  12. Create a new folder for your imported files (MyWare).

  13. Right-click the folder and choose Import...

  14. Navigate to the Master Document folder and import all the Word documents. You can select one or all documents using the Shift or Control key.

Note: Word 2000 users must use the HTML Filter from Microsoft. You can obtain a copy from the magrino.com download page at: http://www.magrino.com/download.htm

Beginning of tip

That's all for July. August's tip will be out shortly. Stay tuned!!

Rob Magrino
Certified XxxxXxxx Instructor