User Guide Cancel

Generate Responsive HTML5 output

Last updated on 5 December 2023

Robohelp

Open app

Learn how to generate Responsive HTML5 output in RoboHelp so that your content adapts to devices of all sizes.

Master pages used in the PDF or Word output template have been renamed as Page Layout.

Master pages used for topic templates or for online outputs have been renamed as Topic Layouts.

For more information, see Templates in Adobe RoboHelp.

What is Responsive HTML5 output

Generating Responsive HTML5 output makes your project output consumable on devices of various screen sizes. This means that you can publish content that is optimized to fit screens of popular devices, such as iPad, iPhone, and more.

Responsive HTML5 output can be viewed both online and offline. You can publish the output on HTTP and HTTPS servers. For information about supported browsers, see RoboHelp system requirements.

Configure a Responsive HTML5 output preset

The first step in generating the output of a RoboHelp project is to create an output preset and then configure the various settings of the output preset. You can use the following settings to configure a Responsive HTML5 output preset:

General

Use the following options to specify basic output settings, such as title, output path, language of UI strings, and more:

Title Specify the title for the generated output.

You can use variables in the title. To do so, type Ctrl + 1 and select a variable from the drop-down list, and then press Enter. Note that if you have provided a variable set in the Content tab > Variable Set field, during output generation, the value of the selected variable is picked from the variable set.

The title, along with the variables if used, appears on the browser tab of the output.

Favicon Specify an icon to associate with the output. This icon appears on the browser tab of the output. Click to browse and select a desired icon.

Output Path Specify a location for the output. To select a location, click .

Ensure that the output path is NOT located inside the project folder. If the output path is inside the project folder, the output generation fails. Also the folder you select should NOT have any content that you need. RoboHelp deletes the contents of the folder before generating the output.

Save output path as relative to project: If enabled and you browse to the output path., the path to the output will now be a relative instead of absolute.

Start Page Specify the page name and extension (.htm or .html) that RoboHelp can use to generate the URL for the output. For example, specify index.html.

Language Use the drop-down list to specify a language for the output preset if the language of the UI of the generated output needs to be different from the language of the content specified in project settings.

Encoding Use the drop-down list to specify the type of character encoding format to be used for your content.

Use lowercase file names Select to generate all output files with lowercase filenames.

Post Generation Script To run your custom script after output generation, select the script .js file from the drop-down list.

Content

Use the following options to specify content-related output settings, such as the settings for Table of Contents, index, glossary, and condition expression:

Table Of Contents Use the drop-down list to select a Table of Contents to be included in the output. This drop-down list displays the Tables of Contents available in your project. The first Table of Contents in this drop-down list is selected by default.

The set of files and their references present in the selected Table of Contents appear in the generated output.

Browse Sequence Use the drop-down list to view the defined browse sequences in your project. You can select more than one browse sequence. The selected browse sequences are then merged for the output. If there is a conflict with the selected browse sequences, the first selection is given preference.

Default Topic Click to select the topic that displays in the Topic panel when you open the output. By default, the first topic in the Table of Contents selected for this output is the default topic.

You can also select the default topic from the merged child projects. The list shown under the merged child projects is read from the selected TOC.

Include Index Select this setting to include the index page in the output.

Glossary Use the drop-down list to select the glossary to be included in the output. The glossary helps your users to quickly retrieve the relevant terms in your project, with the corresponding definitions.

Condition Expression Use the drop-down list to specify the condition expression for your output. This setting allows you to easily include or exclude content depending on the desired type of output or userbase. Click to edit the selected condition expression. You can also select None in the drop-down list to not specify any condition expression.

Dynamic Content Filter Use the drop-down list to select a dynamic content filter so your end users can filter content in the generated output. Click to edit the selected Dynamic Content Filter. Alternatively, select None in the drop-down list to not specify a dynamic content filter.

Variable Set Use the drop-down list to specify the variable set to use in this output. In the drop-down list, you can select <Default Variable Set> to use the project's default variable set. Variable sets allow you to implement output-specific use of variables. For example, you can have different variable sets for generating output for customers and internal users.

Map Files Use the drop-down to select a map file to use context-sensitive help. For more help, see Work with context-sensitive help.

Layout

Use the following options to configure the appearance of your output:

Master Page Use the drop-down list to select the master page for the output you are generating.

Skin Use the drop-down list to select a skin to apply in your output.

Show Thumbnail for Images Select this field to show thumbnail for images in output.

Create Thumbnail for images Select this field to generate image thumbnails from existing images in the output. These images can be enlarged when the user clicks them.
Style Existing Images as Thumbnails Select this field to style existing images as thumbnails in the output. These images can be enlarged when the user clicks them.

Search

Use the following options to specify search-related settings for your output:

Search Context. You can specify the Search Context to customize the search topic results based on your requirements. The three available options for Search Context are:

Text around the search term: Selecting this option displays the text around the first occurence of the search term.
Topic description: Choose this option to display the topic description as the context. It displays the description that you add under General>Description in the topic properties.
Starting text of the topic: Choose this option to display the opening content of the topic.

Set search context character limit. You can add a value here to set a limit to the number of characters that get displayed in the search topic results.

Enable a uto complete in search box. Select this option to display predictive options for the search query based on the initial characters typed by users.

Auto correct search query. Select this option to correct misspelled terms that are typed during search. This setting corrects up to one character in each word typed during search. This ensures that you receive relevant search results, even if you enter a misspelled term.

Show definitions from glossary. Select this option to display definitions of search terms from the glossary selected for this output. If the search term matches a glossary term, the definition of the term is displayed.

Generate XML sitemap. Select this setting to generate a sitemap for your published output. The sitemap.xml file in the published output contains the sitemap. You can then submit this file to your search engine to improve search results for your site. To submit the sitmap.xml file, follow the procedure described in your search engine’s documentation. In Base URL of the hosted content, enter the relative URL of the site. In Frequency of content change, specify a cadence for indexing the content.

Select file types to exclude from search. You can exclude specific types of files, such as PDF, Word, and Excel, from search. The content from the selected files will not be included during search.

Note:

After you've configured an output preset, you can access it in the Quick Generate dialog box of the authoring window or in the Output Presets panel of the publishing window.

Publish

You can publish your output to RoboHelp Server, SharePoint Online, FTP, SFTP, or File System. To be able to publish your output, first configure a publish profile for the appropriate server type. For more information, see the following sections:

After you save the publish profile, RoboHelp displays the profile in the Publish tab. To publish your output, select the appropriate publish profiles and click .

By default, only modified files are published using the chosen publish profiles since the last publish.

To publish all files, select Republish All and click . To view the publish log, in the Output Presets panel, against the appropriate output preset, choose > View Publish Log.