Robo What?

I’ve talked about Online Help and what it was and how it’s used.  Online Help is a great tool for replacing those dusty paper manuals that have been cluttering up offices for year.  Online Help is created via a a software program. There are a few out there to choose from, but I have always used and continue to use and recommend, RoboHelp (RH). I’ve been using one version or another of RH since it’s inception by eHelp.

Background

RH was better off when still owned by eHelp. I mean all they did was work on this program and make it better and better. When it was acquired by Macromedia it stalled and the updates weren’t all  that.  Then again Macromedia was focused more on their web design products like Dreamweaver.  I often wondered if they just thought that Dreamweaver could replace RH.  It can’t and I won’t digress here.

When Adobe stepped in and acquired Macromedia, RH heard the death knell.  Luckily for us tech writers, Adobe heard us and after a lull of updating RH for almost 2 years, it rolled out a new, and in my humble opinion, better version of RH.

Back to RoboHelp

RH is used by a lot of technical writers.  This program allows for us to design simple or complex online help systems for a myriad of industries.  What I like about RH is it’s simplicity.  It’s easy to design in WYSIWYG or flip over to the HTML code for troubleshooting.  It’s easy to create modules (the best help systems are created in a modular format) and add or modify them.  It’s also easy to upload simultaneously to different places if necessary.

RH is a very robust program that can handle everything from Source Control, to single sourcing, to small and simple help systems to large and complex help systems.  It allows for multiple authors to work on the same help system at the same time, speeding up the documentation process. 

An author or authors can create content and keep working on it even while SMEs(subject matter experts) are reviewing the documentation.  They can be in one location or spread out throughout the world and still be able to review content without slowing down the technical writers.  No more mailing or emailing of content.  A simple click of the button by the technical writer and off the content goes where the SME can mark it up and send it back to the author.  The author can accept or reject SME changes and reinsert the content in the correct place.

How much time does that save?

A really cool feature of RH is the ability to single source.  Never heard of it?  Let me tell you, not having the ability to single source was the biggest waste of time for technical writers.  For years, before they perfected the Single Sourcing feature, I used to have to write content then copy and paste said content a couple three times, change a sentence here or there then code that whole topic (set of instructions) for a specified audience. Not only did this take a lot of time, but the duplication took up a lot of server space too.  RH took a long time to get this correct, but they have and in the latest version of RH they introduced one of the best single sourcing options I’ve worked with. 

Now a technical writer can write the content once, add all the variables then code the one or two sentences for a specified audience.  Based on this code, RH exports a Help System based on the target audience which can then be accessed by defined security roles.  I get sooooo excited just typing this.  Yes, I know: geek!

As you can seeRH has some powerful functions that aid the Technical Writer in quickly and efficiently designing an Online Help system.  This is just a tip of the ice berg and there is a lot more.  I could spend hours just detailing one feature after another.

I came into this field when RoboHelp was designed and owned by eHelp.  I’ve stuck with RH through all their ups and downs. Each media form has a tool that works best with the end result you’re trying to create.  RH is great for Online Help, Dreamweaver and PhotoShop are awesome tools for creating web sites, and Acrobat is the best thing on the block for creating PDFs. Wouldn’t you know that they are all now owned by Adobe.  I think they have good taste.

While RH is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best, Online Help tool out there, there are still some problems.  The program is sooo big that many computers have issues handling it.  It can crash just like any other program out there.  It can have you pulling your hair out as you have a heart attack with the dreaded “file corrputed” error. Luckily, an experienced Technical Writer knows how to fix this (from experience) and a good Technical Writer will know who to call or where to find the find the answer to this.  And overall, because there is soooo much to this software, it’s pricey, but you get what you pay for and the Pros way out weigh the Cons; in my opinion anyway.

I have never lost an online help system due to a faulty RH program or a conflict of RH and the client computer.  Come to think of it I have never lost an online help system.

If you have used other Online Help programs please let us know.  I’m interested to see if anything compares with RH.