User Guide

Set topic properties

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Robohelp

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  1. RoboHelp User Guide
  2. What’s new
    1. What’s new in Adobe RoboHelp (2026 release)
    2. Adobe RoboHelp release notes (2026 release) 
    3. What’s new in Adobe RoboHelp (2022 release)   
  3. Introduction
    1. Get to know RoboHelp workspace
    2. RoboHelp System Requirements
    3. Download RoboHelp on Windows and macOS
    4. Download and install Adobe app
    5. RoboHelp FAQs
  4. Projects
    1. Plan your RoboHelp project
    2. Create a project
    3. Manage projects
    4. Work with topics and folders
    5. Set topic properties
    6. Generate reports
    7. Work with context-sensitive help
    8. Manage References
    9. Set preferences in RoboHelp
    10. Supported file formats
  5. Collaborate with authors
    1. Collaborate using Git
    2. Collaborate using SharePoint Online
    3. Collaborate using Azure DevOps (Team Foundation Server)
  6. PDF Layout
    1. PDF templates
    2. Design a page layout
    3. Publish PDF output
    4. Work with the common content styles
    5. Components of a PDF template
    6. Support for language variables
    7. Customize PDFs
  7. Editing and formatting
    1. Format your content
    2. Create and manage cross-references
    3. Create and manage links
    4. Single-source with snippets
    5. Work with images and multimedia
    6. Create and use variables for easy updates
    7. Work with Variable Sets
    8. Use Find and Replace
    9. Auto save your content
    10. Side-by-side editing in Split View
    11. Use the Spell Check feature
    12. Create and Edit Bookmarks
    13. Insert and update fields
    14. Switch between multiple views
    15. Autonumbering in CSS
    16. Insert a watermark in RoboHelp project
    17. Work with master pages
    18. Work with labels
    19. Configure a grammar and spell checker
  8. Import and linking
    1. Import Markdown files into a project
    2. Import Word documents into a project
    3. Import FrameMaker documents into a project
  9. TOCs, indexes, glossaries, and citations
    1. Create and manage a Table of Contents
    2. Create and manage an index
    3. Create and manage a glossary
    4. Create and manage citations
    5. Create and manage browse sequences
    6. Work with See Also and Related Topics
  10. Conditional content
    1. What is conditional content
    2. Create and apply condition tags
    3. Configure output presets for conditional content
    4. Optimize and manage conditional content
  11. Microcontent
    1. Microcontent
  12. Review and Collaboration
    1. Review and Collaboration
  13. Translation
    1. Translating content to multiple languages
    2. Configure a translation framework for a service provider
  14. Generating output
    1. Generate output
    2. Generate Frameless output
    3. Generate Knowledge Base output
    4. Generate PDF output
    5. Generate Responsive HTML5 output
    6. Generate Word Document output
    7. Generate Content Only output
    8. Generate eBook output
    9. Generate Microsoft HTML Help output
    10. Generate Mobile App output
  15. Publish output
    1. Publish to a RoboHelp Server
    2. Publish to an FTP server, a Secure FTP server, or a File System
    3. Publish to SharePoint Online
    4. Publish to Zendesk Help Center
    5. Publish to Salesforce Knowledge Base
    6. Publish to ServiceNow Knowledge Base
    7. Publish to Zoho Knowledge Base
    8. Publish to Adobe Experience Manager
    9. Publish to Atlassian Confluence Knowledge Base
  16. Appendix
    1. Adobe RoboHelp Scripting Reference
    2. RoboHelp keyboard shortcuts
    3. Introduction to Frameless skin editor
    4. Troubleshooting command-line preset output generation failure
    5. Installing JavaHelp and Oracle Help Components

Learn how to set topic properties and customize your topic, your way.

After creating a topic in RoboHelp, you can set several topic properties. You can change the language of the topic's content, set a status such as In Progress or Ready for Review, specify search keywords, and more. You can also specify the style sheet, condition tags, and index keywords for the selected topic.

Edit topic properties

To access the Topic Properties dialog box and set the properties for a selected topic, follow these steps:

  1. In an open project, click Contents in the Author toolbar to view the Contents panel.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Right-click the desired topic in the Contents panel and select Properties.
    • Click the Options icon  next to the desired topic and select Properties.
    • Double-click a desired topic in the Contents panel. You can view the Properties panel on the right side of the screen. If you are unable to view the Properties panel, select View > Properties Panel. In this panel, click the Topic tab.

  3. Specify the topic properties in the various sections of General, Search, Style Sheets, and more. To know more about these properties, see Topic properties.

  4. Once you've specified your topic properties in the Topic Properties dialog box, click Apply. If you're using the Properties panel, click the Save icon  in the upper-left corner of the standard toolbar.

Topic properties

In the Topic Properties dialog box, you can view the following sections:

General

In the General section, you can edit the following properties:

  • Title Specify the title of the topic.
  • File Name RoboHelp automatically adds the filename based on the topic title you specify. For example, if the Topic Title is 'Introduction to ABC Manual', RoboHelp adds the filename as 'Introduction_to_ABC_Manual.htm'. You can edit the File Name field and provide a custom filename.
Note

RoboHelp does not support the following characters in filename:

\, /, :, *, ?, ", <, >, |, ', ;, #, and %

RoboHelp automatically converts spaces and unsupported characters into underscores _ or displays an error message. To change this setting, choose Edit > Preferences. In the General tab, deselect the Use underscores in file names field.

  • Author Add the author's name for the topic.
  • Description Add a description for the topic.
  • Notes Add notes for the topic. These notes are non-publishable and are visible only while authoring the topic. 
Topic properties

  • Language Use the drop-down list to select a language for the topic's content. If you don't specify this setting, RoboHelp uses the Project language setting as the default language for topics.
  • Status Use the drop-down list to add a predefined status for the topic, such as Draft, In Progress, and Reviewed.
  • Map IDs  Shows all Map IDs assigned to the topic.
Topic properties

In the Search section, you can edit the following topic properties:

  • Search Keyword Define search keywords for the topic. When a user searches for content in the output, these keywords will help relevant topics to appear in the search results. You can separate keywords using a comma and press Enter. Alternatively, you can type your keyword and press Enter. The keywords are then displayed below the Search Keyword field. To remove a keyword, click  in the desired keyword.
  • Exclude this topic from search Select this setting to exclude the topic from search.

Style Sheets

In the Style Sheets section, you can associate a topic with multiple style sheets. Do the following:

  • Use the Style Sheets drop-down list to select a style sheet from the current project. 
  • Click  to browse and select a style sheet from your computer. When you specify a style sheet from outside the project, it is copied in your project.

The selected style sheet is added below the Style Sheets field.

If you have selected more than one style sheet, you can reorder the list using drag-and-drop (use the Drag icon ). If a style has different properties in different style sheets, preference is given to properties in the style sheets that are the latest, that is, at the bottom of the list. 

To remove a style sheet, click  against it. 

Index

In the Index section, you can add index keywords. These keywords are specific to the topic and appear in the Index panel. In the Index Keywords field, specify your keyword and press Enter. You can also add subkeywords by using : in between keywords. The keywords are then displayed below the Index Keywords field. To remove a keyword, click  in the desired keyword. For more information, see Create and manage an index.

Condition Tags

In the Condition Tags section, you can apply two types of condition tags - Topic-Level and Content-Level tags. In Topic-Level, you can add or remove the condition tags applied in the topic. In Content-Level, you can view all the tags across the topic. You can then delete a condition tag to remove it from across that topic.

To add condition tags, click Apply Tags to view the Apply Condition Tags dialog box. In this dialog box, you can access the list of condition tags in your project. Select your desired condition tags and click Apply. To remove an applied condition tag, click  in that condition tag.

File Info

In the File Info section, you can view the following details of the selected topic:

  • Created On Displays when the topic was created, with the date and time.
  • Last Modified On Displays when the topic was last edited, with the date and time.
  • Location Displays a link to the saved location of the topic file on your computer. You can click this link to open Windows Explorer where this file is located.

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