RoboHelp Office X5

Other products by eHelp Corp

Product Features

• Create professional Help systems and documentation
• Work with built-in or popular HTML editor or Microsoft Word
• Create Help systems that run on any browser or platform
• Easy to use; automated wizards and project templates
• For desktop and Web-based applications

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001EKE6U
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 27, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,040 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  #52 in	Software > Programming > Development Utilities
  #92 in	Software > Business & Office > Project Management

Product Description

From the Manufacturer
RoboHelp Office is the fastest, easiest way to create professional Help systems and documentation for Web and desktop applications, including .NET and Rich Internet applications. You can work in RoboHelp’s built-in HTML editor, any popular HTML editor such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, or Microsoft Word.

Create Help systems complete with Help topics, table of contents, index, glossary, context-sensitive Help, and more. Generate multiple Help systems in any popular online Help format, plus press-ready printed documentation in Microsoft Word or PDF format.

RoboHelp Office supports the creation of Help systems in 11 languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

Minimal Learning Curve

Work in your preferred editor. Create and edit your Help systems in RoboHelp's built-in HTML editor, any popular HTML editor such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, or Microsoft Word. Since you choose the authoring environment, you can skip the learning curve and get started immediately.

Use the content you already have. Import content from HTML documents, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker, PDF documents, XML documents, or existing Help projects. RoboHelp automatically splits information into Help topics and preserves any existing table of contents, index, and glossary.

Easily create context-sensitive Help. RoboHelp makes it a snap to link your Help system to your application, so technical writers and software developers no longer have to struggle over coordinating context-sensitive Help.

Flexible

Generate any popular online Help format. Generate your project in any popular format, including FlashHelp, WebHelp, Microsoft HTML Help, WinHelp, JavaHelp, Oracle Help for Java, and XML. Generate any or all of these formats from a single project with a single click.

Create Help systems that run on any browser or platform. Two of the Help formats RoboHelp generates, WebHelp and FlashHelp, are cross-browser, cross-platform formats that are ideal for use with both desktop and Web-based applications.

Create press-ready printed documentation. Generate printed documentation in Microsoft Word or PDF format from the same project used to create your online Help system. The print files you generate are completely press-ready, so there is no post-production required.

Customize your content for multiple audiences. Create multiple versions of your Help system from a single project by using conditional text tags to specify exactly which content should be included in which version(s).

Efficient

Save time. Create professional Help systems and printed documentation for desktop and Web-based applications in a fraction of the time. Automated wizards and project templates accelerate the process to help you meet or beat your deadlines.

Organize workflow. Stay organized and track document evolution with file check in/out, time and date stamps, automated file comparisons, version rollback, and other powerful content management features.

Facilitate contributions by multiple authors. RoboHelp's content management features make it easy for multiple team members to seamlessly contribute to a project, even if they are telecommuters or remote office workers, even over low-bandwidth connections.

Track end-user activity and continually improve content. View detailed reports that tell you in real time the specific areas of your Help system and application where end users are having difficulty. Update your Web-based Help system on the fly to instantly improve these areas, even after your application has been released. (Requires RoboHelp Office Pro.)

Product Description
RoboHelp Office X4 The Industry Standard in Help Authoring RoboHelp Office makes it easy to create professional Help systems for desktop applications (Windows, Mac and Linux) and Web-based applications, including .NET. RoboHelp Office is the Industry Standard in Help Authoring and has won over 55 prestigious industry awards. Fast & Easy With RoboHelp, it's easy to create standard and advanced Help features, including topics, graphics, audio, special effects, and more. Use automated wizards to generate a Table of Contents and Index in seconds. Not only will you save time, but you'll dramatically improve your application as well. Work In Your Preferred Editor RoboHelp lets you create and edit your content in Microsoft Word, any popular HTML editor such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, or RoboHelp's built-in "WYSIWYG" HTML editor. Since you choose the authoring environment, you can skip the learning curve and get started immediately. Create Any Popular Help Format With a single click, RoboHelp can output your project in any or all of the following formats: FlashHelp* Pure HTML WebHelp JavaHelp HTML Help OracleHelp for Java WinHelp Printed Documentation Create Cross-Browser,Cross-Platform Help Systems FlashHelp and WebHelp formats display reliably on virtually any popular browser and platform (Windows, Macintosh, Linux). FlashHelp offers greater consistency across different browsers and platforms than any other Help format available. With RoboHelp, you can be confident that all end-users can view your Help system exactly the way you designed it. Leverage Existing Content With RoboHelp, no previous work is wasted. Import FrameMaker files, Word documents, HTML documents, or existing Help projects. RoboHelp automatically splits information into Help topics and preserves your Table of Contents, Index, and Glossary.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Overpriced and very disappointing., June 17, 2004

By	Kimba W. Lion "kimbawlion.com" (the East Coast) - See all my reviews

ADDITION TO MY REVIEW: After updating an old Help project for a Java application, I learned that this version of RoboHelp automatically and without warning changes all map IDs to a different form than the older version, with NO provision in RoboHelp X5 for generating IDs in the old format. Solution: go in and manually change all the map IDs to the old format. This is INEXCUSABLE and makes upgrading from an old version of RoboHelp A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

And get this: If you have two topic files with the same name IN DIFFERENT FOLDERS, the properties box for each file shows the map IDs for BOTH files, with no indication which ID is actually assigned to each file. Really helpful.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: There is very little that is "robo" (i.e., automated) about RoboHelp. Sure, it will auto-generate things when you ask it to, but its output is so erratic and incomplete you might as well do it all by hand.

As a manual Help creation tool, it's got a nice complement of features, but let me tell you about a couple of little quirks or bugs...

You're supposed to be able to switch the type of output you get from RoboHelp at any point in your project. We started out with the goal of producing WebHelp, then switched to MS HTML help. Well, the part where you define what's available in your final output (Window definitions) did not come along for the switch. It took some time to realize that we had to delete the window definitions and define new ones in order for RoboHelp to actually produce the output we wanted.

Another little quirk is that when you add a hyperlink to existing text in a bulleted list, RoboHelp throws in a bunch of space characters (from 3 to 10) between the bullet and the text. And the WYSIWYG editor is not really WYSIWYG, not that that's any surprise, but it won't allow you to do everything you want to do. There is a TrueCode editor to let you get around that, if you know your way around HTML.

A new quirk that I've been wrestling with this morning is that any edit to an existing topic changes the style for that topic, and RoboHelp will not allow me to change it back, even when I edit the HTML directly!

Workarounds, more workarounds, and living with things you can't work around--expect to spend a lot of time developing your project's Help file with RoboHelp.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Functions like a Beta release, March 29, 2005

By	J. Bosch (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Want support for JavaHelp? Forget it. RoboHelp claims to support JavaHelp, but only supports some of it.

For example, I had to write a utility to "massage" the resulting JavaHelp build xml files because RoboHelp does not recognize multiple controls pointing to a single JavaHelp topic. (No, aliases do not work for JavaHelp.)

Also, neither JavaHelp 1.x nor 2.x recognizes all the formatting codes inserted by RoboHelp. For example, plain old HTML bold tags display properly; RoboHelp's bold style does not. What's the use of using a style then?

Did this company even test the product? I don't think so. In fact, when I used one of my two "freebie" support tickets to force the issue about the multiple control/single topic issue, Macromedia admitted, after sending me a lot of irrelevant material about using aliases, that this was a known bug and there were no plans to fix it.

Want frustrating error-prone version control? Just use RoboHelp's built-in crash-a-rama RoboSource, the program that continually provides errors. Oh, I can get it working, sometimes even for days at a stretch; then it'll start its crashing again, where I have to repeatedly reboot my server, a machine we've had to dedicate to RoboSource. RoboHelp doesn't work with CVS, the version control system we use inhouse, though Macromedia claims it works with SourceSafe. I'll never know, though, because I've learned over the years not to trust Macromedia.

Want support for Eclipse? Forget about it. Doesn't exist.

Perhaps for users who only need to single-source a simple documentation set, such as a WinHelp system coupled with a Word document, this product would work just fine. I'll never know, because the documentation community should be heading in the same direction as the application community: cross-platform compatibility.

I could list other problems and workarounds, but what's the point? I recommend looking elsewhere, depending on your documentation needs. I know I will.

The next sound you hear will be the installation CDs hitting my trash can, and the tapping of my keys as I take this opportunity to find another product....

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highway Robbery, May 28, 2004

By	"francois21" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews

This is nothing more than the basic RoboHelp with many more bells and whistles. It's not worth a grand; not now, not ever.

Reminds me of automobiles: they're all the same, four wheels and a horn. They all do the same thing. But start adding features and the price starts climbing.

I think it's the height of arrogance to charge a grand for this software. Just so long as this type of arrogance marks the software industry, then just so long will I in my secret heart cheer on the software pirates.