Denver, Colorado - The Department of Technical Communications and Media Production at Metro State College of Denver is offering Adobe RoboHelp, Adobe FrameMaker and Adobe Captivate courses for Fall 2009. Enrolled students make take the courses for credit or adult learners may audit the course without credit. This "tech writer toolbox" collection is especially timely for those who want to improve their skills in this tight job market.

John Daigle will teach Adobe RoboHelp and Adobe Captivate at the Metro South campus (DTC area) and Linda Gallagher of TechCom Plus will teach Adobe FrameMaker at the Auraria campus in downtown Denver. 

• COM 366Q, “Creating Multimedia ELearning Tutorials with Adobe Captivate 4®” 
  Fridays and Saturdays, 8:30-5:00 pm.  September 11, 12, 18 & 19 

• COM 366R, “Creating Online Knowledge Bases with Adobe RoboHelp 8®” 
  Fridays and Saturdays, 8:30-5:00 pm.  October 2, 3, 9 & 10

• COM 3635,  “Producing Documents for Print and Web Publication” using Adobe FrameMaker®
  Fridays, 8:30-11:50 am.  October 16 through December 11

The cost to take these courses for no credit is $350 per course.  If you register for two or more courses, or if two or more employees from the same organization enroll in at least one of these courses, your cost for each course will be reduced to $325 per course. For more info, email John Daigle and download Professional "Toolbox" Classes (PDF).

Adobe RoboHelp 8 and the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 are released!

John's highlights: I counted over a 100 significant new features in this release of Adobe RoboHelp 8. Major additions like Scripting, a world-class Search engine, strong support for XML standards and DITA import are just some of the new items. This new release not only offers ease of use for authors, but also has a lot of new benefits for end-users. An example is the new Adobe AIR help application which has end user commenting for team reviews, favorites and an automatic content updating feature. It also and looks sharp, too."

Adobe RoboHelp 8 combined with other members of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 make this a no-brainer upgrade. This is especially true for anyone who has a single-sourcing requirement for both print and online audiences. Adobe FrameMaker 9 is well-integrated along with Adobe Captivate 4 and even Adobe Photoshop CS4. That's quite a bundle.

Trials are ready for download from the product pages shown below. Read complete details in this announcement

Should you upgrade? Here's help on making that decision:

A new Adobe RoboHelp 8 Reviewer's Guide has just been posted to help managers evaluate the new release.

There are  61 pages of details feature-by-feature along with Try-It-Exercises that can be downloaded and used in conjunction with the Reviewer's Guide to explore and test-drive the new features.

As you follow that link, be sure to download the Reviewer's Guide PDF so that you can more comfortably play all 7 of the Adobe Captivate feature/how-to demos which are embedded toward the end of the Guide. 

Also the Adobe Tech Comm blog has a summary of the RoboHelp 8 features and more links. This is definitely a major, major release. The thing I like about it is that it not only makes the author's job easier, but also has a lot of features for the end-user - particularly with navigation and Search (always a popular request) 

Many of you longtime RoboHelp authors know, RJ Jacquez who is the Adobe's Tech Comm evangelist. Here is his blog post about the new release.

Here are product page links and "What's New" videos on the following new releases:

• Adobe Technical Communication Suite

• Adobe RoboHelp 8

• Adobe FrameMaker 9

• Adobe Captivate 4

• Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended

• Adobe Photoshop CS4

Also the new Adobe eLearning Suite has been announced with a focus on rapid eLearning development.

Bob Doyle who publishes the DITA Newsletter, explains the DITA features of Adobe TCS and how Adobe FrameMaker 9 and Adobe RoboHelp 8 are integrated to work with DITA. 

Announcing a new (and free) Flare to RoboHelp converter

A migration path for Flare authors who want to return to RoboHelp
Last year at WritersUA and STC in Minneapolis, several folks asked me if there is such a thing as a converter for taking a MadCap Flare™ project and converting it to an Adobe® RoboHelp® 7 project. Now there is a Flare replacement for those who want to return their familiar favorite, RoboHelp. Read more and download the Flare to RoboHelp Converter for free

To see how easy it works, here is an Adobe Captivate Demo

Adobe RoboHelp 8 Read more on the Adobe website. I'll be posting screenshots and Adobe Captivate movies of the new features soon.

This screenshot (one of many to come) shows off the new Multiple Document Interface (MDI). Two topics are open side by side allowing for quick copy/cut/paste across topics. The new "pods" are drag and droppable and if you want to have a less cluttered view, you can close the pods and save your Environment for different workflows. 

• Cleaner code (die <kadov> die!) and more robust HTML Editor

• Unicode support for 35 languages

• Snippets and improved User Defined Variables for easy reuse of content

• Windows Vista and Office 2007 support

• Synonym Search, Search Highlighting and Breadcrumb Navigation

• Much greater integration with FrameMaker and Adobe Captivate

Stay tuned in the coming days for many more screenshots and Adobe Captivate movies!

• Adobe RoboHelp costars with Adobe Captivate - My new article on the Adobe Developer Center

Adobe Training Classes Scheduled:

• Contact John Daigle for Certified Instruction in Adobe Captivate, Acrobat Connect Pro and RoboHelp.

• See Silke Fleischer's Adobe Captivate blog.

• Flash Video Interview with Silke Fleischer at MAX 2006 View (Flash Player 8)

• The Content Wrangler has a great interview with RJ Jacquez, Senior Adobe Framemaker and RoboHelp evangelist.

• Adobe Technical Communications FAQ - The synergy of RoboHelp, Framemaker, Captivate and Acrobat into a full tool suite for technical writers and eLearning designers. Read more

• Adobe Captivate 4 is officially released Read more

• Macromedia Breeze Meeting is now Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional Read more

• Captivate Users Group - Seattle Check out Mark Chrisman's new site 

• Rob Houser - Adobe Community Expert announces User Assistance Group and new website

Must Read: New Adobe Tech Comm FAQ posted for RoboHelp, Framemaker, Captivate and Acrobat. A new Adobe Technical Communications FAQ was posted on the Adobe website which addresses questions regarding the Technical Communications products.

Adobe RoboHelp Resources	Adobe Captivate Resources
Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional Resources