Is Robohelp the right tool for me

[cruiser102]

I need to decide on a tool that will help me take word docs and frame docs and convert them to something Eclipse can use. I was thinking of using Robohelp. Does anyone have any comments that will help me make my decision? I need to make this decision in the next couple of days.

[Guest]

What do you mean by "something Eclipse can use"? Isn't Eclipse a Java development application? What do you anticipate being able to do to these files in Eclipse? We may be able to help you more with some clarification.

--Ben

[cruiser102]

We are using the Eclipse Framework to host our application. We want to use Eclipse help to display our help files. These help files are being done by serveral people using either FrameMaker or Microsoft Word. I would like to take these files and convert them (at one time) to html. From what I understand the TOC for Eclipse has to be xml. Not sure about that one. Does this help clarify?

[Guest]

It sounds like all you're looking for is something to convert Word and FrameMaker files to HTML. This is only one part of what RoboHelp does. RoboHelp's main function is to give you the ability to author HTML help topics, along with a TOC, glossary, and index, and produce a finished, self-contained help system with those components (and a search capability if you want one).

My personal opinion is that if all you are looking to do outside of Eclipse is convert the Word and FM files to HTML, getting RoboHelp--and any of the other major help authoring tools--is probably overkill. It would be a lot of money for one or two features.

You may want to check out the HAT matrix site to find out what will mostly closely meet your needs. There may also be other tools available out there on the Web that will simply take Word and FrameMaker documents and convert them to HTML.

There may be additional opinions from other forum-goers, too.