eHelp Corporation's RoboHELP is one of the earliest and best entries in the online help authoring market. Now in version 9, RoboHELP Office provides some important enhancements to its RoboHELP HTML editor that, if you're upgrading, are worth the $499 upgrade price. If you're new to online help writing, and especially if you need to convert your Word documentation to online help, RoboHELP should be your choice.

Since the days of CP/M, software programs have included help files that the user could refer to for quick help by pressing a key or key combination. Graphical user interfaces, particularly Windows, have enhanced online help with graphics, animation, and links to other points in the help file and to related Web sites. Online help has become the preferred method for presenting software documentation, so over the years a help authoring software niche has developed.

I started using RoboHELP in 1996 with version 3. Since that time Blue Sky Software changed its name to eHelp Corporation, released six version upgrades, and has added new help capabilities to its arsenal as new help systems have become available. RoboHELP Office contains three key components:

• RoboHELP Classic creates WinHelp 3 and 4 systems for Windows 3.x and 32-bit Windows (that is, Windows 95 and later), respectively. You can also create WinHelp 2000 systems. WinHelp 2000 is an eHelp creation that lets you enhance your WinHelp systems with some features of Windows HTML Help, such as displaying HTML features and extensions (such as Flash files) into your WinHelp system. Since WinHelp is based on Microsoft's Rich Text Format (RTF), RoboHELP Classic uses Microsoft Word for editing your WinHelp files.
• RoboHELP HTML lets you create Windows HTML Help for Windows 98, Millennium Edition, and 2000 as well as WebHelp and JavaHelp. RoboHELP HTML 9 now lets you create Oracle Help.
• RoboHELP Office Tools contain tools that help you debug and augment your online help system, including multimedia, search/replace, and help desk creation tools.

This review is about RoboHELP Office 9 Special Edition, which comes with two additional components: FullShot 6.0 for taking screen shots of programs for insertion into your online help, and the WebHelp Resource Kit. WebHelp was created by eHelp Corporation to create online help for display in a Web browser, and the resource kit contains the 70-page WebHelp Resource Guide that helps you get started, as well as a CD-ROM that contains example HTML code.

Earlier versions of RoboHELP came in very large boxes containing more than a few printed manuals for different components. With each subsequent release, eHelp has turned more to online help for its documentation, but to their credit eHelp has kept some printed documentation for RoboHELP Office 9.

The documentation is now a 500-page manual that provides installation instructions, a good overview of the various help systems (including a chart comparing what you can do in each system), and tutorials for both RoboHELP Classic and HTML so you can get started. (The WebHelp Resource Guide follows the same introductory tutorial layout.) If you are new to help authoring, these guides are very useful.

All three RoboHELP Office components come on one CD-ROM; if you purchase the Special Edition, the FullShot 6 CD-ROM comes separately and has no printed documentation save a small sheet that has system requirements and installation instructions. You should have at least 180 MB of hard disk space available, with 64 MB of that space on your primary hard drive (usually drive C) for swap and temporary files.

I installed RoboHELP Office 9 Special Edition on my Dell 266-MHz Pentium II desktop running Windows 2000 Server, as well as on my Dell 750-MHz Pentium III notebook running Windows 2000 Professional, and I had no installation troubles at all. It should be noted that RoboHELP Office 9 is the first version to support Windows 2000 networks.

You can start an individual RoboHELP Office component-RoboHELP Classic or RoboHELP HTML-directly from your desktop or from the RoboHELP Office window when you double-click on the RoboHELP Office icon on the desktop. RoboHELP Classic does not have any significant upgrades in version 9, but if you need to construct a WinHelp help system and/or convert your existing Word documentation to online help, RoboHELP Classic is your best choice. WinHelp 2000 also gives you the added flexibility of adding HTML features to your WinHelp system.

RoboHELP HTML has received the lion's share of attention in RoboHELP Office since version 5-after all, Microsoft HTML Help has displaced WinHelp as Microsoft's online help engine.

If you've used RoboHELP HTML before you'll feel right at home with version 9. In fact, if you use FrontPage as well as RoboHELP HTML, you'll feel even more at home since the user interface now looks closer to FrontPage than ever.

The biggest functional improvement is the addition of the WebSearch feature so users can search the Web from the help desk. Adding the WebSearch feature is as easy as clicking on a checkbox-WebSearch functionality is already built-in.

Another improvement is that you can associate your RoboHELP HTML files with an HTML editor, such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, so you can edit the files in your favorite editor. The people at eHelp cleaned up the HTML code created in RoboHELP HTML from previous versions, so you won't be surprised when you edit your HTML code in another editor.

Editing your RoboHELP HTML files in another editor is just another extension of RoboHELP HTML's multi-platform capability. You can use RoboHELP HTML to create help systems not only for Microsoft HTML Help but also for Java, Oracle, and the Web. You can even use RoboHELP HTML to create and publish Web pages for the Internet or an intranet, and like RoboHELP Classic, you can print out your HTML Help system in book format.

eHelp releases a new version of RoboHELP Office about once per year, so I hope there will be three specific improvements in RoboHELP Office 10 this time next year:

• The printed manual is too small and looks like it's been photocopied rather than printed. This can make some elements, especially some graphics, hard to read. It's also hard to follow along with the tutorials when you're fighting with a bound manual. I would suggest a larger, spiral-bound manual would be easier to read and control.
• I would appreciate more keyboard support of functions in RoboHELP Classic and RoboHELP HTML. For example, there are tabs at the bottom of Classic's RoboHELP Explorer window and tabs at the bottom of the HTML editing window. Since I have had serious problems with my right arm in the past-this is the arm that I use to control the mouse-I appreciate keeping my arms in one place as much as possible instead of having to move the mouse through a lot of screen real estate. Having Alt/Ctrl/Shift key combinations to activate these tabs would be very helpful.
• RoboHELP Office 10 should have direct FrameMaker document conversion support. Right now the extent of RoboHELP's support is to instruct users to convert their FrameMaker documents to Word, then import those files into RoboHELP. It seems strange to me that the preferred layout program of choice for technical writers-the same people who write most online help systems-is barely supported by RoboHELP Office. RoboHELP's competitors, such as ForeHelp, do a better job of supporting FrameMaker at this point. If RoboHELP can meet its competitors head-on over FrameMaker support it would make RoboHELP Office far stronger.

It is no coincidence that this review has appeared during the month that eHelp will be demonstrating RoboHELP Office 9 at our monthly meeting. Indeed, there is much more about RoboHELP Office that cannot be covered in the newsletter, and the good news is that third party RoboHELP Office books now exist. The bad news is that eHelp's rapid-fire release system makes these books somewhat obsolete, especially when it comes to RoboHELP HTML.

Your best bet is to come to the meeting on January 17 and see RoboHELP Office for yourself. Hopefully this review has given you some background information before you see it for yourself. Next month I'll review one of RoboHELP's major competitors in the help authoring suite market: ForeHelp Premier 5.

I read Eric's review and saw that he reviewed from it from a technical writer's perspective. I am a decent writer but I make my living from programming. As a result, I see things differently from Eric, so I felt the need to add these additional comments of RoboHelp 9.

Once upon a time, we used to get paper manuals when we bought software. Help files, if they existed, were supplemental material to guide you through a problem. You still needed to read the manual to understand the product. As help systems (and especially help authoring software) improved, more content was moved from the hardcopy manuals to the electronic help files. This has continued until we have reached today's level where it is extremely rare to get a manual, even if the software requires multiple CDs to hold the entire program. I think the trend has gone too far.

I feel that software makers need to go back to producing a separate manual, even if the manual is only distributed electronically. I certainly do not believe that we will ever get back to print manuals-they are too expensive. But the manual and help files are not necessarily the same document.

I have found that the formatting of text greatly affects how easy it is to read that text. Great formatting can not fix bad writing, but bad formatting can render great writing unreadable. As great as HTML is at making things readable across multiple platforms, the creator of the text has no real control over how it looks on those platforms. For this reason, I believe that manuals should be created in formats like Adobe's PDF.

Text in a manual tends to be linear with a flow of information from beginning to end. Manuals are read to get an understanding of the product and how to use it. On the other hand, help information is accessed to solve a problem. It should be relatively short snippets of information with links to additional information. If you insist on using a single source for both a help file and a manual, you end up with a mediocre manual or a mediocre help file (maybe both).

Some manuals are better as help files than they are as pages of text. An example is an API reference guide. I use Microsoft Visual Studio for programming purposes (primarily C++ these days). I find that having the reference guides in help format is extremely useful. I used to use help to find an API function and then use a hardcopy book to read the description. I have not referenced my hardcopy API manuals in years and have not seen the need to update them. (I may even reclaim the two feet of shelf space and put the books up in the attic.)

RoboHelp HTML

Click the thumbnail for full image. (71K)

When RoboHelp 1.0 was released many years ago, it consisted of a program that was launched via macros which translated the Word document into a help file. In version 9, you still have that option by using RoboHelp Classic. More recently, they developed a WYSIWYG version they call RoboHelp HTML. RoboHelp HTML is very powerful and much easier to use than the Word add-on. They continue to support the Classic version, but I think the HTML version is much easier for new users to learn. I use Word a lot (Sacra Blue is done completely in Word) but you do not need all of Word's power to make help files. I think Word gets in the way, and recommend that you stick with RoboHelp HTML.

RoboHelp offers a capability of generating a manual from a completed help file. I choose not to use it because of my personal feelings of what content should go where. I have seen other reviews of RoboHelp that do not like the result of the translation, but I guess it would make a good starting point for the manual.

RoboHelp HTML provides an easy-to-use interface. The editor has the elements you find in Visual Studio, like configurable toolbars, an element tree with folders, and tabbed dialog boxes. Since the display portion is WYSIWYG, you can see what it will look like as you build it. I found it very easy to learn, but then I used a previous RoboHelp Classic version (although it has been several years).

If you are new to it all, I recommend viewing some of the WebEx presentations that eHelp has on their Web site. These are movies with a voiceover, almost as good as going to a training seminar. (You just do not get to ask questions.) Since these are on the Web site, you can view them before you actually buy the product. My only objection is that they want to know who you are before you access the movies.

I think I was more impressed with the auxiliary tools that are included in the package. They can save you lots of time during development. Here are my favorites:

• "What's This? Help Composer" will look at one or more EXEs or DLLs and create a context help file. You will need to change the default text to the real information but this can save you from forgetting a field. A nice feature is that you can process the files again to catch new fields that are added without losing anything you have previously done. I think this is the right place to start when doing an application help file. I have used several programs that had incomplete context help that could use this program.
• "Help-to-Source" reads an existing help file and recreates the source files. This is useful for those projects where you inherit someone else's work. It creates it in RoboHelp Classic format, but there is supposed to be a way to easily move from Classic to HTML format (I have not looked yet).
• "Graphics Locator" will search for graphics files on your hard drive and let you see them quickly. A great way to find that picture file that was named strangely.
• "ReSize" will resize a picture to the size and color depth you need to save you space in the help file. This program is easier to use than any similar program I have tried.
• There are some debugging tools to check out your completed files and find nasty things like lost links. Finding these things manually can take forever.

There are plenty of other tools to choose from, but that list should be enough for you to see how much is in this package. I recommend RoboHelp to any software developer to help create a complete product. I think you will be pleased with the end result, and more importantly, so will your clients.