Re: MS help for Mac

[Dan BRINEGAR <vr2link -at- VR2LINK -dot- COM>]

Paul Carr wrote:

>>Maybe I am missing something.  What is the help application for the Mac
>>(I have a 7600 which I love)?
>>

<Delurking after beating my head against Office97 for two months>

The Mac MS Help reader shipped with Mac Excel 5.0 and MS Office for the Mac
(4.2 ?)

Blue Sky (RoboHelp) and WexTech (Doc2Help) also had MS Help goodies for the
Mac, but since this summer I haven't been able to find them again -- time
to wade thru my bookmarks and update everything....

Up until MS Office97 hit most of the Windows shops, one could quite
efficiently create WinHelp on Macs, too....

BE ADVISED: *ANY* help created with Word97, Office97, etc. will be
UNREADABLE on yer Mac... (Though you could always use BBEdit to open the
RTF files, Snitch to change the File types, and ohhh, lesseee....

... FrameMaker to convert them from "Word7/8/97 rtf" into something useable).

Anyway, Macs probably won't be able to read new MSHelp97 files as such
until Mac Office 98 comes out in January (or June....)
<Edit|PasteSpecial|Picture|Copy-into-document|Don'tFloatOverText><holdingbre
ath-and-turningblue-waiting-
for-*THAT*-to-Happen>

Which of course will be the time all the Windows shops are beating their
heads against the wall to do Office 98 1/2 Help-as-HTML... which *NO*
machines will be able to read unless they have the Windows 98 1/2 embedded
Internet Explorer browser....

>>Also, is there any call for technical writers who know how to write for
>>Apple Guide?
>>

Well, if you work for Adobe, maybe... or another company heavily invested
in making Mac software--I've had AppleGuide on my resume for three years...
I got two questions about what it *was*  but none about
would-I-please-come-down-and-develop-in-it.... not only have I taken it off
my resume, I've removed the AppleGuide Authoring Kit from the Syquest
cartridge it was backed up on...

The independent Mac software Developers  (Peter Lewis, Brad Hutchings, and
those guys) are doing their own AppleGuide development -- and not only do
they make great software, they're pretty good writers, to boot!

AppleGuide is Fun to develop in... but won't pay the rent <grin> (unless
yer the one guy at Adobe doing all the AppleGuide Help for them).

>Date:    Wed, 15 Oct 1997 19:22:37 -0800
>From:    Paul Carr <sorcha -at- BBS -dot- MACNEXUS -dot- ORG>
>Subject: MS help for Mac
>
>Walker, Arlen  Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM   wrote:
>
>>Be mystified no longer. MS ships a help application for the Mac as well....
>> You see, there are a lot of Mac users who don't have any MS
>>applications on their system (my home system, for example) so wouldn't >
>>have the help application.
>
>Maybe I am missing something.  What is the help application for the Mac
>(I have a 7600 which I love)?
>
>Also, is there any call for technical writers who know how to write for
>Apple Guide?
>
>Technical Writer and (weekend) Medical Records Abstractor
>
>Paul Carr
>
>sorcha -at- bbs -dot- macnexus -dot- org

-----------------------------------------------------------
Dan BRINEGAR, CCDB Vr2Link
Performance S u p p o r t Svcs.
Phoenix, Arizona

http://www.vr2link.com
<mailto:vr2link -at- vr2link -dot- com>

"The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
  are the ones who do."

  Think different.

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