RoboHelp and "Essential Files" for CM

[Steven Oppenheimer <Steven -at- OppenheimerCommunications -dot- com>]

Hope someone can Help me out with a RoboHelp X5 question.

I'm on a contract where my client, a company where the staff is otherwise 
sane and wonderful, but which has a slight fixation about automating 
virtually everything.  In particular, when they build the software (from 
source files), they also want to build the associated Help files, using 
RoboHelp to generate the target Help file.  So, I have two questions:

1.  First of all, my past experience is this is problematic in 
general.  Taking RoboHelp source files, and moving them back and forth from 
one machine to another, seems to cause problems.  A RoboHelp Help system 
which is authored on one computer, and built on one computer, and works 
fine that way, tends to get messed up in various ways -- formatting gets 
messed up, links to graphics disappear, all sorts of "whacky shit" happens 
-- if the source files are ported to another computer.  My question is, 
does this square with other people's experience?  I'd like to be able to 
offer testimonial evidence when I tell my client that what they want to do 
is a bad idea -- but only if it's honest testimonial experience.

2.  Assuming they insist on doing things Their Automated Way, can anyone 
tell me what are the essential RoboHelp sources files that have to be 
checked into their configuration management system?  I know that at a 
minimum, the following are essential:  the .doc file, the .rtf file, the 
.hh file, the .hpj file, .cnt, and the .hh file.  Anything else?  (The 
other files that I see out there are:  .akw, .hpt, .kkw, .prs, .qwm, .rbh, 
.trk.  Are these essential too?  Have I missed anything?  Do I need to 
store the source files for graphics as well?)

Thanks in advance for all replies.

Steven Oppenheimer, M.A.
Oppenheimer Communications
Technical and Business Writing:  From Complexity To Clarity (SM)
Steven -at- OppenheimerCommunications -dot- com   http://www.OpComm.com   (301) 468-9233 


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