The RoboColum(n)

Remember a few years ago when the good old RoboHelp people at Macromedia left pretty much en masse and started Madcap Software? The doom merchants were many and vocal. They waxed lyrical about the demise of RoboHelp as an effective help authoring solution as if overnight a good product became a bad one.

Since then Madcap have produced their own HAT called Flare. It  was shamelessly marketed at former RoboHelp users with big fat financial inducements to get us to sign up. Many did, but a sizable number remained loyal to the recognised leader in its field. Rumours of RoboHelp being sunset did not originate from inside Adobe when they bought Macromedia and despite all the pessimism they began work on a new release.

RoboHelp 6 was a stepping stone to bigger and better things. It didn’t really set the world alight but it did make Adobe’s intention clear. It shouted from the roof tops that Adobe had a future for RoboHelp. It did not see FrameMaker as an alternative. In fact it thought other products in its suite would compliment each other. This was logical if you think about it as Adobe has PDF, FrameMaker, Captivate and RoboHelp all of which can be used to generate content.

The big leap forward in my opinion was RoboHelp 7 – not to be confused with the earlier RoboHelp version 7 which was released sometime in the previous millenniumwhen WinHelp was a huge step forward and DITA was unheard of. RoboHelp 7 saw a complete redesign of the interface and many new features, reusable snippets and user variables being two of the sexiest, as well as real signs that the product was being integrated with other Adobe applications like Captivate and FrameMaker. It also saw RoboScreenCapture, an old screen capture application from the e-Help days being fully integrated. I was a happy fella.

Then came the Technical Communication Suite 1 which gave you RoboHelp 7, Framemaker 8, Captivate 3 and Acrobat in one box. Everything you could possibly need to produce professional documentation. Rejoice and be glad!

Sales rose, but we wanted more. We told Adobe that whilst we really did like what we were seeing, there was so much more that could be achieved. Adobe staff attended conferences, they went on tours around world and listen to what us authors had to say. The result is RoboHelp 8 and the Technical Communication Suite 2. Believe you me this will make a huge difference to your workflow. Download a trial now.