New to documenting software

[sgodfrey -at- ion -dot- com]

I have a question that will be simple to you software writers, but please bear
with me. I am a hardware writer and have very little experience with documenting
software.

My company has several projects for me documenting new software we're
developing. There is one project that was written and documented a while ago by
an engineer. He wrote the entire Help system in Winhelp (as far as I can tell).
The software was written in Visual Basic. It is now my job to re-vamp and
re-write the Help files, but I have no idea how to do it--it looks as if
Robohelp can open Winhelp files, but I want to know how he wrote them in the
first place.
I am familiar with Robohelp, but not its biggest fan.

Can any of you please give me advice on:
- editing exisiting Winhelp files
- which programs are best for editing Winhelp files (Robohelp? Winhelp?)
- any possibilities for replacing Winhelp with more current types of help files
(ala Robohelp)
- working with engineers now to integrate the new Help files
- books or other references for teaching myself the basics here

I'm on digest, so I appreciate direct responses. Thank you.

Sierra



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