Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3 overview

Adobe Technical Communication Suite software is an end-to-end solution for authoring, reviewing, managing, and publishing technical information and training content. You can use it to create and maintain technical documentation, user assistance systems, knowledgebases, simulations, software demonstrations, and other support information.

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The tight integration of component products in the suite enables true single-source authoring. You can author content once and publish it in multiple formats and languages. For example, you can author content in Adobe FrameMaker and output it in multiple formats using Adobe RoboHelp.

You can also enrich content through interactive 3D models, rich media, multilayered images, demonstrations, and embedded SWF movies. Using the cross-platform Adobe AIR Help format, you can push updates to your Help content even after you have delivered it.

This latest release of Adobe Technical Communication Suite includes the following components:

  • Adobe® FrameMaker® 10: Author and publish technical content, with XML, DITA standards support, and excellent PDF publishing capabilities. Includes content management support such as EMC Documentum 6.5 SP1 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 SP 2.

  • Adobe® RoboHelp® 9: Author and publish procedural- or process-based online Help and knowledgebases. Also includes RoboScreenCapture for still image capturing, and RoboSource Control for managing project source files.

  • Adobe® Captivate® 5: Rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations and interactive content. Author rich eLearning content that includes branching scenarios, Table of content, quizzes, and SCORM- and AICC-compliant multimedia content.

  • Adobe® Acrobat® X Pro: Reliably create, combine, and control Adobe PDF documents for easy, secure distribution, collaboration, and forms data collection. Create stunning portfolios that combine several file types, such as image formats, FLV file, PDF, SWF file, and interactive 3D.

  • Adobe® Photoshop® CS5: Edit and enhance images and screenshots before using them in your projects.

Adobe Technical Communication Suite includes support for Adobe® Illustrator® CS5. You can seamlessly edit Adobe® Illustrator® CS5 illustrations from within Adobe® FrameMaker® 10. For this, install Illustrator separately on same system as Technical Communication Suite.

If you want to capture some quick screenshots, you can use Adobe® RoboScreenCapture®, which is available with FrameMaker, RoboHelp and Technical Communication Suite.

Adobe RoboHelp also includes Adobe RoboSource Control, which lets you add Adobe FrameMaker or Adobe RoboHelp files to version control. RoboSource Control™ stores all your project files in a database, enabling other authors to access them. It also prevents more than one author from checking out a file at the same time.

Top features of Adobe Technical Communication Suite

Seamless content creation
Create, review, manage, and publish technical information seamlessly. You can publish your content in XML, DITA, PDF or as printed manuals.

Create Rich PDF
FrameMaker excels at creating richly formatted PDF output. Using FrameMaker, you can add 3D, graphics, audio, video, multimedia, and interactive content. Embed Adobe Captivate demos and simulations in online Help projects and PDF documents. For more information, see Rich media .

Single-sourcing (tighter FrameMaker and RoboHelp integration)
You can create content once in FrameMaker and publish it for print/DVD world as XML, DITA, PDF file, or printed guides. You can single source the same content in RoboHelp and create online content as .chm, webhelp, AIR, or EPUB files. Further, you can directly generate online Help from FrameMaker. Single-sourcing reduces content creation time as duplication is prevented. Single-sourcing also reduces errors as reviews are singular, and saves localization costs as same content is being leveraged across mediums. For more information, see Using FrameMaker with RoboHelp .

Multi-device output
Devices are in. Users now demand content to be displayed through smartphones or Internet-enabled devices, such as Kindle. With RoboHelp 9, you can now create EPUB-content that appears well across various devices.

DITA Support and multi-channel publishing
Author your DITA projects in FrameMaker and then leverage the power of RoboHelp to create online Help. You can create .chm file, webhelp, Flashhelp, Javahelp, Oraclehelp, Eclipsehelp, XHTML, EPUB, or AIR files. With FrameMaker 10, there is no need to convert DITA documents into books only for linking-purpose. You can directly link to DITA documents. For more information, see Authoring and publishing workflow using FrameMaker and RoboHelp .

Review and Collaboration
Technical Communication Suite includes Acrobat that lets you collaborate on documents. Use Acrobat.com to share PDF files, set up and manage reviews through e-mails, and collaborate on PDF documents. Initiate reviews from within FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and Adobe Captivate, without having to exit authoring applications for setting up reviews. Generate PDFs that can be commented with Adobe Acrobat Reader. Document reviewers do not need to have Acrobat or Technical Communication Suite installed on their systems to comment documents using Acrobat Reader. For more information, see Review and collaboration .

Create Cross-platform output
Deliver your Help projects in the cross-platform Adobe AIR format. You can push updates to your Adobe AIR Help projects even after you have delivered them.

Easy multimedia recording
You can also record a new Adobe Captivate demonstration from within FrameMaker or RoboHelp. You can publish captivate output as SWF file, Zipped package, PDF, or Autorun movie on CD. For more information, see Publishing Projects . You can use Adobe Captivate Reviewer application to efficiently review and comment on Adobe Captivate projects.

Create secure PDFs and PDF Portfolios
Reliably create, combine, and control Adobe PDF documents for easy, secure distribution, collaboration, and forms data collection. Create quality portfolios. For more information, see Rich media .

Effective copy-editing
Use AuthorAssistant with FrameMaker to improve content consistency and translatability. For more information, see Style and linguistic checks using SDL AuthorAssistant 2010 SP1 .

Automate manual tasks
Use ExtendScript to automate daily mechanical tasks that require manipulation of simple or complex objects. You can use ExtensScript with FrameMaker, Photoshop, and RoboHelp. It allows robust automation of tasks across products. For more information, see Working with ExtendScript .

SCORM, AICC, and PENS support through Adobe Captivate 5
Adobe Captivate 5 supports most e-learning content creation standards for single-click publishing to learning management systems (LMS). SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) is a set of specifications used to produce reusable e-learning objects. It defines communication between a client (such as Adobe Captivate) and a host (usually an LMS). For more details, see Learning management system (LMS) .

Enhanced image-editing
Capture images and screenshots for your Help projects using RoboScreenCapture and use the powerful features in Photoshop CS5 to edit and enhance them. You can also animate the different layers of a Photoshop image in Adobe Captivate.

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