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I am new to the tech. writing field as of about two months ago. My 12 years
working as a journalist and a writing teacher helped me make a career switch
to tech. writing, with my first job involving writing a variety of
documentation for a certain database program (which I felt very capable of
doing). Today, however, I learned that I also will have to write the Help
screens for this program using RoboHelp. Writing Help screens was never
mentioned in my interview, and I have no experience using RoboHelp. After
having spent more than two hours on the Web searching for info. about RoboHelp
training, I came up with several cities and dates for RoboHelp seminars, most
of which cost a fortune (if the costs have to come out of my own pocket), but
nothing about online training. Several questions I have are:
1. Does an online training course in Robohelp exist? If so, where can I find
one?
2. If not, is Robohelp fairly easy to learn on my own as I use it?
3. If my best bet is actually to attend a seminar in some city, what are my
chances that the recruiting agency for which I contract will pay for me to go?
4. If the agency doesn't pay for the costs involved in attending a seminar,
are the fees tax-deductible?
Thank you in advance to anyone who can offer some insight.