Adobe RoboHelp

I didn't know what to think about RoboHelp. Is it a document or a web page or ????

The cool thing about it is that it's all of the above and probably stuff I haven't discovered yet. Single source writing takes some brain cells. Think of it this way. Imagine that there is data you care about a whole lot more for its own sake than any other reason.

Think about your resume. Do you care if it's shoved in a mail slot, delivered by Gmail, called up in a web search or emailed as a PDF? Of course you don't - as long as it gets to the reader?

Ok, now imagine there were a thousand people who might like to read your resume but they only accept it in a different format. Sucks huh....

This is the situation businesses are in every day, only their data is much more complicated than a resume. Imagine if you could avoid rewriting your data every time you needed to change formats. Keep your data in a living store where you didn't have to redo everything just because someone wanted a web page or a pdf or ????

That's what is so exciting about RoboHelp. It really changes document writing because you don't have a bunch of different documents. You have a central adaptive document that changes for each type of delivery format. I can see dollar signs with this program. Who prints twelve million copies today? I won't. I'm going to build a solid project in RoboHelp and then be ready for whoever wants my resume, however they want it.

Nobody says there won't be updates and work ahead but it will be a whole lot less work than I used to think it would be. Everything will be up to date and ready for what it needs to be next. My resume gets dressed for an interview just like I do. It just ends up as a PDF, Word File, Book, or Web Page. Its all still my data - I just dress it in a new suit.

Thanks Adobe.