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Subject:Re: Help tools and manuals From:FB -at- POINTDUBLIN -dot- CCMAIL -dot- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM Date:Fri, 1 Mar 1996 04:23:23 EST
Dan,
If you are going to use separate files for the manual and the help,
and if you are going to use Ventura rather than Word for your manual,
then there is no real advantage to using Doc-to-Help.
We have used D2H for creating online help and, while we have found it
very useful for smaller files (where the equivalent manual is about 50
pages long), we have had a number of problems using it with larger
files (where the equivalent manual is more than 250 pages long). Most
of these problems seem to arise from resource and memory problems with
Word. Indexing these files has been an unbelieveable nightmare...
Sorry I can't recommend any other tools. We're looking into this issue
ourselves here over the next month or two.
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Help tools and manuals
Author: INTERNET:dan -at- coyote -dot- tsh -dot- com at CSERVE
Date: 29y02y96 14:51
My company is producing a new product in a Microsoft environment (we're one
of those fancy Microsoft Solution Provider people). Due to this status, the
People Who Make Decisions think it would be a good thing if we did the help
file and manual with a Microsoft product. They want a separate look, feel,
and layout for each of these docs. That means two separate files. This is a
big piece of software. I would guess the printed manual would be around
550-600 pages.
Well, for the help file we could use Doc-to-Help with MSW 6.0, but I am
concerned on how D2H will handle a super big file. Any suggestions, comments,
or different ideas? What does Microsoft use for their help files?
I think that the printed manual will have to be done in a different tool than
MSW 6.0. We used to use Ventura 4.1.1 for our manuals, but now that Corel has
basically killed its uses in the tech document field, we have not yet migrated
somewhere else. Frame seems to be the way to go. Has anyone had any experience
with their Ventura filter/converter?
Thanks in advance,
Dan Glovier
dglovier -at- tsh -dot- com
