Obtain feedback, search non-HTML docs and merge projects

While RoboHelp Server 6 costs more, many of the features that were formerly expensive add-ons are now included in the basic software. Here are some of the features that set RoboHelp Server 6 apart from virtually all other authoring tools:

Database captures and stores keyword search terms: When a user types "expense report form" in the search field, this phrase is captured verbatim and stored in the database. If no results are found, the message, "Sorry, we were unable to find a good answer for your question," is returned. The search term is then counted and added to the list of unanswered questions in a feedback report. This is a major benefit for authors who are trying to improve their content.

Users can search non-HTML topics: Another major benefit to this search engine is that it searches the text of MS Office and Acrobat PDFs and not simply HTML topics (see Figure 1.) This is especially intranet-friendly because forms must often remain in their original document format and cannot be converted to HTML topics.

Figure 1. In addition to HTML topics, RoboHelp Server search results bring up Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Acrobat PDF documents

Authors can take care of administrative tasks more easily

It's no longer necessary to rely on a network administrator every time an author or documentation manager wants to change the server configuration, manage users and reports, or schedule the timing of document scanning. The Web Administrator dialog box can be accessed two ways: either from a web browser or as a pane in the authoring client application.

User access is cross-browser, cross-platform-friendly

The two outputs include WebHelp Pro and FlashHelp Pro. These are published to the RoboHelp Server 6 application, which lives on a Windows-based web server that uses Internet Information Services (IIS 5 and above). It's important to understand that even though the web server is Windows-based, the user who views your content can use any of a variety of web browsers and operating systems. So, for example, your user may use Firefox on a Linux operating system or Safari on a Macintosh to view your content.

Several products are now rolled into one

Over the years there has been a lot of confusion as the product morphed under different names. Adobe RoboHelp 6 is the new client authoring application installed on your local machine. Adobe RoboHelp Server 6 is a database application that resides on the web server. The server was previously referred to as the RoboEngine. Several other products also used the RoboEngine. RoboHelp Pro, RoboHelp Enterprise, RoboInfo, RoboHelp Pro for .NET are all names now replaced by one server application. The .NET features and the ODBC connectivity pack to Oracle and MS SQL Server are now included and no longer require a separate purchase.

For RoboHelp authors, project management is the same

There is no change in the way you create, edit and manage your RoboHelp projects. When you are ready to publish, you generate a single-source layout of either WebHelp Pro or FlashHelp Pro to the RoboHelp Server 6 database application installed on the web server. The license does not limit the number of projects you can publish. The number of users who may visit the help system is not limited.

In a typical scenario, each author on a team might be responsible for a subset of the help system or knowledge base. Each author manages a separate RoboHelp project and publishes it to the RoboHelp server. When the user visits the website, all of the content is merged seamlessly.

In the example below (see Figure 2) one author is assigned to Administration, one to Human Resources, and so on. As the individual projects are published, RoboHelp Server 6 merges them with a common table of contents, index, glossary and search.

Figure 2. Project merging: Each of the "books" in the TOC represent separate projects managed by multiple authors. RoboHelp Server 6 merges not only the TOC, but Index keywords, Glossary terms and search results as well.

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