Re: framemaker vs. robohelp

["Jane Bergen" <jbergen1 -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

Your question is like asking "which is better, pickups or sedans?" The
answer is that you may need both...depending on what you want to do
with them. They don't do the same things. RoboHelp is simply a bunch
of macros that run on Microsoft Word (well, that's simplified
somewhat). It is not a document processor. Are you saying that you use
it to produce your printed manuals? If so, then you're really using
Word. Tech writers and developers use RoboHelp for creating online
help systems, either WinHelp or HTML. RoboHelp has never been intended
to be used primarily for printed documents, and it certainly has no
relationship to FrameMaker.

FrameMaker is great for making printed manuals, especially large and
complex sets of printed manuals, and comes bundled with Adobe Acrobat
for making PDF documents (which are different than "online help"
documents). If you want to buy Adobe Acrobat without FrameMaker, you
could certainly turn other documents, including Word docs, into PDF
files. I do it all the time.

Hope that helps.

Jane Bergen

----- Original Message -----
From: David Strausfeld <davids -at- pniltd -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>

(some content snipped for brevity)

> I'd be interested in people's thoughts on which is  better,
> Framemaker or Robohelp.  I've heard from several people that
Framemaker is
> the software of choice for technical documentation, such as user
manuals.
>   We currently use Robohelp.
>
> One thing that appeals to me is putting our manuals in PDF format --
> although I guess there must be other ways to do that besides using
> Framemaker, right?