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If you're going to be producing online Help, take the time to download a
trial copy of MadCap Flare and play around with it. Also, MadCap has
recorded webinars available on their web page. I've attended many over the
years, and found them to be useful, and often (but not always) tool neutral.
One warning though, MadCap seem to have gone a bit crazy recently with
their documentation, producing almost 40 PDF guides. As an experienced
user I've only flipped through a few of them, and it looks like the bulk of
their doc is reused content included in multiple guides (showing off how
you can single source), so pick and choose what you need to read and don't
even think you have to read the entire doc set to understand how to use
Flare. (I'd start with the section in the Help http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare9/Default.htm about How to Develop
a Project)
I've also spent some time recently with RoboHelp, as I've had to use it at
a couple of gigs in the past couple of years.
In general I've found Adobe's help to be less useful than I'd like. Their
web site is harder to navigate, and their forums less helpful (the answer
to every one of my questions always seems to be "here is this complicated
workaround to make it work the way people think it should"). I've taken
several Adobe webinars, and they tend to be more focused on marketing/sales
than training. I've also found that their webinar offerings are often
either for complete beginners who have never used their tools, or for
advanced users who are using their tools to solve extremely complicated
problems that are often irrelevant to anything I'm currently working on.
Since I fall somewhere in the middle, I don't often find them to be time
well spent.
Hope that helps!
On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 1:06 AM, Erika Yanovich <ERIKA_y -at- rad -dot- com> wrote:
> Hi Mark,
> I'd go for a video tool, something like Captivate or alike.
> HTH,
> Erika
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> Hello all! I was a tech writer for 8 years before becoming a stay home dad
> for the last 5. I am venturing back into the field, rust in tow. My
> question is as follows: I have a limited amount of $ to spend on training,
> so given where the industry is headed, what utilit(ies) training should I
> pursue?
> Humbly,
> Mike
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--
Julie Stickler http://heratech.wordpress.com/
Blogging about Agile and technical writing
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