Some days back, I had blogged about the two sample projects that come with Adobe RoboHelp 9. While the primary purpose of these projects is to demonstrate some of the new and old features of RoboHelp, these projects also exemplify some cool best practices for authoring in RoboHelp.

Use of cross-hatching to indicate that a topic/text has CBTs applied

Using the View > Show > Conditional Areas option, the sample projects display CBT-applied topics or text with cross-hatch shading.

Cross-hatching to easily identify CBT-applied topics

See Hide and view conditional text for more information.

Use of DHTML drop-downs to reveal information on demand

The sample projects include several tips. Some of the tips are “hidden” in the output by using DHTML drop-downs. Only the tip icon appears in the output to minimize distraction, and users need to click the icon to reveal the information. The same technique has been applied to show information about entitlement, procedure, and disputes related to dependants’ leaves.

Extra information "hidden"

Extra information displayed "on demand"

See Dynamic HTML and special effects for more information.

We recommend that you play with the sample projects and discover many more best practices. Check out how you can use user-defined variables and snippets to enhance productivity and ensure consistency. Check out how you can use master pages to add branding and copyright information to each page of your Help system.