Adobe has just announced the launch of the second release of its Technical Communication Suite (TCS). Full hands-on reviews of it, and its major components, will follow in due course but I was recently given a sneak peak to see what we could expect…

To be honest my expectations were pretty low. I’ve never quite shaken off the feeling that the first release of the TCS was a largely marketing-driven exercise designed to squeeze the last possible sales from the two central dinosaurs – FrameMaker and RoboHelp – by bundling them together and then throwing in some additional high-end power – think Acrobat 3D – that’s actually irrelevant to the average user but which allows Adobe to claim that the suite offers “unbelievable value”.

These doubts grew when I heard that the major selling-point of the new release was the bundling of Photoshop CS4. Call me cynical but I’m assuming that most technical documentation creators have already found a way to include images in their work.

The good news is that, based on the sneak peek, my misgivings look wide of the mark. In fact it’s clear that Adobe has given the TCS some much needed TLC – and some serious development effort.

To begin with, Adobe has finally bitten the bullet and given FrameMaker 9 the much-needed revamp that it’s been crying out for for over a decade. For the central component of a supposedly bleeding-edge design suite to look and act like a 1980’s Unix mainframe application was unacceptable and the new CS4-style interface should remove that embarrassment and seriously boost productivity.

I didn’t get to see the new RoboHelp 8 in action – probably because it hasn’t been given the same overhaul – but the good news is that it has moved into the 21st century in other ways. Most notably by finally embracing XML and XHTML.

However what really stood out in the demonstration was the work that Adobe has put into improving the Technical Communications Suite’s workflow and its integration with underlying technologies.

The new ability to save a Framemaker document directly to Acrobat.com as a reviewable PDF is valuable enough, but the ability to easily incorporate those changes back into the live document is pretty extraordinary.

Even better is TCS 2’s new ability to output projects to Adobe AIR to enable desktop-based delivery and an alternative route for comment-based review.

Crucially these online/offline AIR apps aren’t limited to HTML but can contain embedded PDF content – including 3D work added through the bundled Acrobat Pro Extended – and interactive Flash SWFs – created with the bundled copies of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter. Put it all together and it shows the strength of the TCS’s all-round, multiple-application, multiple-channel, suite-based approach to technical authoring.

From the sneak peek and feature lists it’s clear that Adobe is seriously committed to developing the capabilities necessary to turn the Technical Communication Suite into the documentation equivalent of the all-conquering Creative Suite.

However, as the target market for TCS knows only too well, looking good on paper is only part of the story. As such, I’m reserving judgement till I’ve seen all the apps in action.