Adobe Unveils Technical Communication Suite

[Combs, Richard]

Bill Swallow wrote:
 
> Doesn't seem like much of an integration, and certainly isn't 
> single-sourcing given you can't round-trip the RH content back to FM.
> It's a repurposing solution.


If round-tripping were a prerequisite for single-sourcing, then using
Acrobat Distiller and Webworks Publisher to create deliverables from
your FM files wouldn't qualify. 

As Michael noted, the integration or whatever you call it seems to make
it unnecessary (although still possible) to make changes in RH after
importing the FM source. If that's true, then you can single-source. 

Take a look at the FAQ
(http://www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite/faq/),
especially these questions:

- "What does Technical Communication Suite offer technical communicators
and help authors that they don't already get with FrameMaker or
RoboHelp?"

- "Will RoboHelp 7 work with RoboHelp projects that have FrameMaker
source files added as links?"

- "Is there a difference between the standalone versions of RoboHelp 7,
FrameMaker 8, Acrobat 3D Version 8, and Captivate 3 and the software
versions included in Technical Communication Suite?"

- "What are the key benefits of Technical Communication Suite?"

Note that the suite versions of FM8 and RH7 have unique features to
"improve the workflow" that are not included in the standalone versions.
If you just sprang for the standalone version of either or both, you may
want to whine to your Adobe representative about some kind of
(inexpensive) migration path. :-)

Richard


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Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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