Adobe's Technical Communication Suite 2

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Adobe Systems Inc. has announced the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2, a powerful upgrade of its one-of-a-kind solution for authoring, reviewing, managing, and publishing rich technical information and training content across multiple channels.

Using the suite, technical communicators can create powerful documentation, training materials and Web-enabled user assistance containing both traditional text and 3D designs along with rich media, including Adobe Flash Player compatible video, AVI, MP3 and SW file support.

The enhanced suite includes Adobe FrameMaker 9 software, the latest version of Adobe’s technical authoring and DITA publishing solution, Adobe RoboHelp 8 software, a major upgrade to Adobe’s help system and knowledge base authoring tool, Adobe Captivate 4 software, a powerful upgrade to Adobe’s popular eLearning authoring tool (see separate press release), and Photoshop CS4, the industry standard for digital imaging software and a new addition to the suite. The suite also includes such category leading products as Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended and Adobe Presenter 7.

“With the Technical Communication Suite 2, Adobe answers the needs of technical communicators for increased productivity and greater integration between FrameMaker, RoboHelp and Captivate,” said Sanjeev Gadre, Director of Marketing, Print and Publishing at Adobe. “Rich imagery is now expected by technical readers and the inclusion of Photoshop CS4 allows technical writers, help authors, learning professionals and information specialists to add rich visual content to their work.”

Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 is a complete solution that offers improved productivity along with robust support for standards-based authoring including support for Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an XML-based standard for authoring, producing and delivering technical information. It enables the creation of rich content and publishing through multiple channels, including XML/HTML, print, PDF, WSF, WebHelp, FlashHelp, Microsoft HTML Help, OracleHelp, JavaHelp and Adobe AIR. The suite also delivers efficiency to the review process by allowing reviewer comments to be imported directly from PDF.

FrameMaker 9 offers a new modern user interface enabling technical communicators to easily author, structure, review and publish complex and lengthy content. It supports hierarchical books and industry standard DITA 1.1, and makes it easy to author topic-based content.

In addition, FrameMaker 9 provides a unique capability to aggregate unstructured, structured and DITA content in a seamless workflow. Using a PDF based review workflow, authors can easily import and incorporate feedback reducing the time and effort to develop content. FrameMaker 9 also leverages enterprises’ existing investments in content management systems by allowing users to access and search for stored content.

Adobe RoboHelp 8 delivers essential new features that allow technical communicators to easily author XHTML-compliant professional help content. It increases productivity with support for automation, single sourcing, and closer integration with FrameMaker and Microsoft Word. The software also supports Lists and Tables, a new and intuitive CSS editor, powerful Pages and Templates, and a new search functionality making it easier for end-users to find relevant content. Authors can publish content to multiple online help formats, including an Adobe AIR application that offers a seamless online and offline user experience and supports rich features such as RSS feeds and user comments.

Adobe Technical Communication Suite, FrameMaker 9 and RoboHelp 8 are compatible with Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended) and Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1. Upgrade and education pricing is available.