Re: MasterHelp

["George F. Hayhoe III" <george -dot- hayhoe -at- SRS -dot- GOV>]

Heli Roosild asked about MasterHelp.

This package comes in two versions, one for Word for Windows and another
for Corel Ventura. Each version allows you to convert documents in the
respective native format into WinHelp files.

My group has been using the Ventura version of MasterHelp for about 18
months now, and we've had good success with it. It's far easier to use than
Doc-To-Help, the other product we've used to produce WinHelp files, and
offers lots of functionality and flexibility as well, including calls to
external applications. Also, as far as we know, it's the only product that
allows you to begin your journey to WinHelp with Ventura documents,
including all the graphics. Since Ventura is our principal page layout
tool, MasterHelp has been a natural choice for us.

Of course, all such packages subscribe to the questionable premise that
documents intended for paper publication can be *easily* converted to
online form.

We recognize that problem, but we've discovered that if you design the
original paper document with online conversion in mind (for example,
"chunking" information on pages as you would for online panels), the result
is a reasonably successful document in both media.