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Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite: The Integration Process

About the Technical Communication Suite 

 

Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite (TCS) is a wonderful solution for authoring, managing and publishing technical information and training content in multiple formats and languages.

 

The suite combines four powerful programs:

  • Acrobat 3D
  • FrameMaker 8
  • RoboHelp 7
  • Captivate 3

For the first time, technical communicators can author content in FrameMaker (instead of Microsoft Word) and link the FrameMaker content into a RoboHelp project.

 

Once linked together, the RoboHelp project and FrameMaker document(s) communicate with each other. All you need to do to update both your FrameMaker and RoboHelp content is make changes in FrameMaker and, back in RoboHelp, perform an Update. And that’s it.

 

You can also import Captivate published SWFs into the FrameMaker document. If you create a PDF out of the print document, the interactivity is retained, making your PDF highly interactive. And of course, since the suite applications are integrated, you can edit the imported Captivate SWF from within FrameMaker, make changes in Captivate and when you exit Captivate, the edited Captivate project is republished and updated in FrameMaker. Cool!
 

Over the next several weeks, I’ll take you through the process of integrating RoboHelp, FrameMaker and Captivate (I’ll leave discussions of Acrobat for a different series article.)

 

RoboHelp and Integration

 

RoboHelp is a wonderful tool for creating killer Help Systems. However, RoboHelp’s involvement in the integration process is minimal. I am not saying that you don’t have to know RoboHelp to be successful with integrating the suite. On the contrary, you will have to have at least a working knowledge of RoboHelp to be successful. What I am saying is that RoboHelp doesn’t play the key role in the technical communication workflow–that distinction goes to FrameMaker, which I’ll discuss in future articles.

  1. Create a new RoboHelp project or open an existing project (projects intended to be integrated with FrameMaker must have at least one topic)
  2. Attach the fmstyles.css to at least one topic in the RoboHelp project

    The fmstyles.css file comes with RoboHelp and is part of all new RoboHelp projects. Attaching fmstyles.css is key to successfully importing FrameMaker content into the RoboHelp project. Why? When you import the FrameMaker content, it’s the fmstyles.css file that controls how the FrameMaker content will appear in the RoboHelp project.

    When you attach the fmstyles.css file to the topic, you will likely be unhappy with the appearance of the topic text. No worries, you can edit the CSS file easily from within RoboHelp (which is one reason I said above that you will need to know how to use RoboHelp).

  3. Import FrameMaker documents or book files by right-clicking the HTML Files (topics) folder on the Project Manager pod and choosing Add FrameMaker File > Add by Reference

    If you do not see Add FrameMaker File > Add by Reference, it is likely that you do not have the Adobe Technical Communication Suite. Keep in mind that the suite adds unique integration features to the applications that make up the suite.
  4. You will have access to two important dialog boxes during the import process: Content Settings and Style Settings.

    The Content Settings dialog box

    Style Settings

    While fmstyles.css controls how the text will look in RoboHelp, the Content Settings and Style Settings control such things as the TOC, Index, Glossary, how the numbering formats from FrameMaker appear in RoboHelp, how the cross references are formatted and how the FrameMaker content is paginated in RoboHelp.

  5. When you click the Finish button, the FrameMaker content will be imported into your RoboHelp project.

    And the imported content will need some adjustments made to the content settings. But that… is a story for another day…

Next week: Content Settings
 


 

Want to learn more about integrating the Technical Communication Suite? Click here.

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