Help-Authoring-Tools
Marktüberblick über empfehlenswerte Tools zum Erstellen von Software-Dokumentation (Handbücher, Online-Hilfen). Viele dieser Help-Authoring-Tools und Online-Dokumentations-Tools unterstützen das Generieren druckbarer Handbücher (PDF) und Online-Hilfen aus einer gemeinsamen Textquelle (Prinzip des Single-Source-Publishing).
Auf dieser Seite (in englischer Sprache):
Other general help authoring tools
Converters for Microsoft Word and FrameMaker documents
Tools with a focus on code and API documentation
Web-based help authoring tools and online documentation tools
Tools with a special focus on building knowledge bases for customer self-service and and FAQ
General purpose HTML and CSS editors
Mere HTML and CHM compilers and converters
Siehe auch: Auswahl eines Help-Authoring-Tools
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Clearly not a tool for occasional users but for full-time technical writers. Excellent single source publishing features. Can create PDF without the need of an external text processor, but can produce full-featured Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker files as well. Other advanced features are its DITA import (including relation tables), the option to have different structures for online help and printed user manuals generated from the same source, and the professional translation workflow. Concept markers make it easy to add structured related-topic links. Within browser-based help files, sophisticated search features can be implemented. “MadCap Contributor” provides a simplified user interface for casual content contributors, such as subject matter experts and reviewers. The optional add-on product “MadCap Pulse” provides social collaboration features, such as comments, and can track reader activity. The optional add-on product “MadCap Central” adds a cloud-based platform for content and project management, hosting, publishing, task tracking, user permissions, and team collaboration. Price: Flare approx. $1450; Contributor approx. $350; Pulse approx. $200 per month; Central starting at approx. $79 per user per month. Description supplied by vendor: For a long time, RoboHelp clearly was the market leader of help authoring tools. Today, some of its competitors have caught up or even outperformed it. Key advantages still are its large scope of functions, its efficient and powerful integrated HTML-editor, full control over the generated HTML code, version control, and multiauthor support. RoboHelp’s close integration with Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker also enables you to create online help from existing user manuals. Another noteworthy feature is that RoboHelp can provide a search function that also includes external content. On the downside is the lack of a professional translation workflow. The add-on product “RoboHelp Server” lets you easily deploy and manage up-to-date online content and control and monitor the use of browser-based help systems in real time. Prices: approx. €1370; also available as part of the Technical Communication Suite; RoboHelp Server: not published https://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp.html Description supplied by vendor: Very efficient and easy to use. The output is highly customizable, especially on the HTML side. In addition to various help formats and ebooks, Help & Manual can also create high-quality PDF manuals without the need of using an external text processor, such as Microsoft Word, and without the need of an external PDF generator, such as Adobe Acrobat. Help & Manual provides excellent support for single source publishing, including user-defined builds, snippets, conditional text with IF THEN ELSE statements, and variables. Other advanced features are the XML-based translation workflow, team authoring support, and the possibility to integrate with version control systems. You can run complex builds from the command line, or you can set up publish tasks that generate various documents in one go. For example, you can generate the online help for a Standard version of your product, the online help for a Professional version of your product, and printed user manuals (PDF) for both versions as well—all at a press of a button and from the same source file. Help & Manual also is the only help authoring tool that comes with a full-featured screen capture tool. Price: approx. €399 (“Basic”), €598 (“Professional”), and €99 (“Premium Pack”) Has the unique feature that you can use various editors for editing your content: Doc-To-Help’s build-in WYSIWYG editor, Microsoft Word, or any HTML editor. You can even use different editors within the same project. This is particularly interesting when combining texts from different sources and contributors. Thorough and uniform support for conditional text, variables, and text snippets in all editors. Good possibilities for single source publishing. Other special features are the partly automated documentation of source code and program libraries, Doc-To-Help’s component that allows developers to easily embed a dynamic help pane in the application’s interface, and the built-in team authoring support. Creating printed user manuals (or PDF) requires Microsoft Word. Unlike some other help authoring tools, Doc-To-Help cannot create PDF files internally. Price: approx. $1098 Description supplied by vendor: HelpStudio One of the few tools that provide built-in support for translations. Projects can either be translated in HelpStudio right away, or be exported to XML, translated by an external translator with the help of a translation memory tool, and then imported back into HelpStudio. Another interesting feature is the possibility to create your own widgets, which simplifies creating and editing complex content such as drop down sections, thumbnail images, note boxes, includes etc. Good single source publishing capabilities; PDF output may have a different structure than the HTML output. The layout of the created PDF files, however, cannot be customized as flexibly as with some other help authoring tools. Excellent HTML-based editor with full code control. Price: approx. €358
Some tools listed in other sections partly provide similar features. Also look at: Other general help authoring tools Web-based help authoring tools and online documentation tools |
The following programs are clearly less powerful than the market leaders, but they’re also easier to use. For a small help project, using one of these tools can be an economical alternative. HelpNDoc Straightforward help authoring tool, which creates CHM, WebHelp for standard web browsers and IPhones, ePub and Kindle (MobiPocket) eBooks, plus customizable PDF and Word files. Supports styles, variables, and conditional content. Styles are also included in the Word export. Templates can be edited. Also exports code snippets to call online help (C/C++, Fortran, Delphi/Pascal, Power Basic, Visual Basic; other languages can be added via the built-in template engine). Price: approx. €99 (“Standard”) and €249 (“Professional”); there is also free version available for noncommercial use Description supplied by vendor: Doc-O-Matic Author Despite the comparatively low price, all important features that you can expect from a professional help authoring tool are present: Conditional text, text snippets and variables, complete control over layout and formatting both in HTML and PDF, Unicode support, XML source files, and the creation of full-featured PDF manuals without the need for any additional tool or converter. Price: approx. $150 Description supplied by vendor: HelpSmith Provides full support of styles and quite flexible layout options. Creates high-quality browser-based help. Unicode compatible. Basic team authoring support. PDF and Word export. Conditional content. No HTML code control, no export for external translation. Price: approx. $199 (Standard) and $299 (Professional) Description supplied by vendor: Foliant Produces HTML, pdf, and docx from Markdown source files. Integrates Pandoc for pdf and docx and MkDocs for HTML. Supports snippets and conditional content. Price: free (open souce) https://github.com/foliant-docs/foliant GitBook Documentation format and toolchain using Git and Markdown. Provides web or desktop editors (Markdown or AsciiDoc), team authoring support plus version control and multi language support. Can output HTML, PDF, ePub, or Mobi. Templates for API documentation, knowledge bases, and manual documentation. Price: starting at approx. $49 per month; free for open source projects https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook Helpinator Feature-rich help authoring tool, which can export to CHM, HTML, RTF, PDF, QtHelp, OracleHelp, JavaHelp, HelpGUI, EPUB, MOBI, and WordPress. Topic templates can be edited to customize the output. Supports styles, variables, snippets, conditional text (no nested conditions), projects in several languages, and XML export/import. Compilation can be run from the command line. Price: approx. $299; there is also a free version available for non-commercial use Fast-Help In some ways quite similar to HelpStudio. Lately there haven’t been added many new features to Fast Help any more. Price: approx. $299 (“Standard”), $399 (“International”), and $499 (“Corporate”) HelpCruiser Supports styles. Can generate basic PDF output. No conditional text, no variables, no snippets. Unicode compatible. Price: approx. €99 Helen Platform independent authoring tool for creating JavaHelp. Price: approx. €169 Help Crafter Basic help authoring tool for the Mac. Price: approx $50 Answers Basic help authoring tool for the Mac. Comes with several themes. Price: approx. $29; there is also a limited free version available DA-HelpCreator Simple commercial static site generator that uses Markdown files. Other than most open source help generators that use Markdown, this tool comes with its own built-in editor and can easily be installed with the help of a Windows setup program. Creates static HTML pages or CHM files. No export to PDF or other printable formats. No advanced features. Price: approx. €80 https://da-software.de/en/software/da-helpcreator/ WinCHM Pro Basic help editor with full HTML code control, template support for HTML page design, and PDF export. No advanced features, such as conditional text. Compilation can be run from the command line. Price: approx. $129 CHM Editor WYSIWYG editor for editing CHM files. Also supports machine translation of existing CHM files via internet machine translation services. In addition to CHM, the Professional version can export to PDF, DOC, and HTML. Price: approx. $99 (“Home”) and $149 (“Professional”)
Some tools listed in other sections partly provide similar features. Also look at: Web-based help authoring tools and online documentation tools |
The following tools can create some basic documentation semi-automatically. They do this by capturing screens from the software, by recording keystrokes or mouse movements, or by analyzing an application’s internal resource files. While this approach usually doesn’t achieve the same quality as manually written documentation, it can be an efficient way to obtain some preliminary documentation or to produce documents that supplement a training course, for example. Also, you can use the output as a good starting point and add more information later. Dr. Explain Automatically captures all windows of a program, adds callouts to all controls visible in each window, automatically labels these callouts, and then builds a fully linked online help system. All you need to do is to revise the automatically added text and to add some more detailed descriptions where this is necessary. In addition to CHM and WebHelp, you can also create a printed user manual (PDF or RFT format) from the same text base. Along with its technical writing platform TiWri also supports collaboration (“Ultimate” version only). Price: approx. $190 (“Regular”), $290 (“Advanced”), and $390 (“Ultimate”) Includes a help capture tool that generates topic pages of any part of a Windows user interface. For some program development platforms, most notably Visual Studio, there is an add-in available that scans the application user interface, generates a topic page for each form and links the pages for context-sensitive help. Many general help authoring features are also available, so this software is actually a mixture of a rapid help development tool and a conventional help authoring tool. Price: starting at approx. $127 StepShot Automatically captures the sequence of your steps by following your cursor. Takes a screen capture on every click and embeds these screen captures into a document. In a second step, you can edit the screen captures and add text to the document. When you are done, you can export the document to Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, DITA and any XML-based formats, as well as publish to Confluence and easyDITA portals. Price: approx. $29 per month Clarify Takes screen captures and semi-automatically builds a document abound these screen captures. Can export to various formats, such as PDF, Word, HTML, and WordPress. Price: approx. €28 ScreenSteps Enables you to take screen captures of a software and to easily create step-by-step instructions based on the images. When the documented software changes, screen captures can be updated with minimum effort. Especially useful for creating task-based documentation. Price: starting at approx. $99 per month Flowshare Creates step-by-step software guides by capturing the actions performed on screen. Price: starting at approx. €14 per month Datango Performance Suite From a series of screen captures builds screencasts, interactive tutorials, and also printed documentation. Price: not published ClickLearn Records a workflow in popular business software and turns the recording into multi-language learning materials, such as written instructions, video walk throughs, simulations, and on-screen assistants. For example, works with SAP, Oracle, IFS, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Office, and custom WIndows and web applications. Price: not published iorad Creates online tutorials based on screen captures. Price: starting at approx. $250 per month; there is also a free version available for public tutorials DokuTool Makes it easy to create simple, short instructions based on annotated screen captures, which can be an efficient solution particularly for support purposes. Can export to HTML and PDF. Price: approx. €59 http://www.horland.de/dokutool.html MacSnapper Transforms annotated screen captures to HTML-based help pages, Wordpress, or PDF files. Available for Mac OS only. Price: approx. $49 http://www.kedisoft.com/macsnapper/ Halp Simple integrated help authoring and display tool for Microsoft Access. Developers and key users can create context-sensitive help content at runtime. The help content is immediately available to end users via tool tips or by pressing F1. Price: approx. $40 |
The following help authoring tools use Microsoft Word for editing the texts, or convert existing Word or FrameMaker user manuals into online help: Adobe FrameMaker FrameMaker itself has some good export options for creating online help. Price: approx. €1370; also available as part of the Technical Communication Suite WebWorks ePublisher Easy to use, unmatched in performance but also in its price. Available in versions for Microsoft Word, FrameMaker, and DITA-XML. If you have the appropriate licenses, it’s even possible to generate common online help from different source formats. High flexibility coupled with low customization effort. Can even handle messily formatted documents quite well. Price: approx. $795 per year WebHelp Authoring Suite / ChmHelp Authoring Suite Convert Microsoft Word documents into browser-based help or CHM. The set of build-in features only covers basic conversion tasks, but the software lets you create your own add-ins for custom processing. Price: approx. $299 each Mif2Go Converts FrameMaker files into compiled online help (CHM), browser-based help, DITA, and Microsoft Word. Rather complex installation and customization required. Uses a proprietary “Document Coding Language” (DCL) for configuration. Mif2Go is interesting especially when you need custom conversions that aren’t provided by existing converters, or when you need to closely integrate a conversion into a specific production processes. Price: free (freeware) OfficeHelp Uses Microsoft Word for editing the documents. Many useful functions add to or optimize the built-in functionality of Microsoft Word, such as marginalia, conditional text, problem-free handling of numbered lists, and a comfortable cross-reference function. The created online help files use a tab-based information design that makes it possible to provide a flat and simple table of contents even for extensive documents. Price: approx. €299 (“Standard”) and €599 (“Professional”) Help Producer Merely adds a small toolbar to Microsoft Word. However, don’t be fooled: Help Producer is surprisingly powerful, and can be integrated seamlessly into Word-based workflows. Extensive customization possibilities (templates, style sheets, themes). COM scripting object model lets you control the output and automate complex tasks. Price: approx. $395 https://www.mgtek.com/helpproducer WordToHelp Converts Microsoft Word documents (Doc, Docx) to CHM and to WebHelp. Price: approx. $249 http://www.softany.com/wordtohelp/ Doc Converter Pro Converts Word-Files or PDF files to HTML-files (but does not build a help system from these HTLM files). Templates give you control over how the documents are converted. Price: approx. $99 chmProcessor Generates compiled help (CHM), JavaHelp, or browser-based HTML help from Microsoft Word files. Splits the source documents by title formats. Price: free (open source) http://chmprocessor.sourceforge.net NüHelp Basic converter for transforming Microsoft Word and HTML files to a CHM help file. Price: free (open source) https://sourceforge.net/projects/nuhelp/
Some tools listed in other sections partly provide similar features. Also look at: |
Doc-O-Matic Professional Professional documentation tool, particularly for source code documentation and for developer documentation. HTML output can be customized to a high degree. Good support for single source publishing. Can also create high-quality PDF manuals. Price: approx. $690 Description supplied by vendor: Document! X Automates the process of creating and maintaining documentation particularly for complex components or XSD schemas. High degree of automation and flexibility. Translations into foreign languages can be done either with the help of a built-in translation editor, or via XML export/import. Price: approx. €358 West Wind HTML Help Builder Although this tool shows its strengths especially when it comes to documentation of source code and program libraries, it also meets the requirements of technical writers who create end user documentation. Supports discrete information types and templates and gives you full control over the generated HTML code. Can also create clean Microsoft Word documents, including paragraph and character styles. Another advantage is the built-in multiple user support. A major disadvantage of the program is that it doesn’t support conditional text and text variables. Price: approx. $299 VSdocman Directly integrated into Visual Studio. Can automatically read namespaces, types and their members and documentation comments in your code and transform them into MSDN-style documentation. In addition you can also also add and edit your own topics. For advanced editing and further processing, you can optionally export to Help & Manual (another help authoring tool; see above) and to XML. Price: approx. $229 Documentation Insight Delphi source code documentation solution. Price: approx. $249 DocFX Create a static website that contains both conceptual documentation from Markdown files and API documentation from .NET source code and source code comments. Other than many similar tools also runs on Windows. Price: free (open source) https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/ Sphinx Designed for the documentation of Python projects and C/C++ projects. Output formats include HTML, Windows HTML Help, and LaTeX for printable PDF versions. Price: free (open source) Read the Docs Transforms and hosts documentation written in reStructuredText or Markdown with the help of Sphinx. Adds various extra features for professional use. Price: starting at approx. $150 per month Microsoft Sandcastle Produces MSDN-style documentation by scanning source assemblies. Optionally also integrates XML documentation comments. Price: free (freeware) Slate Helps you create good-looking API documentation, based on Markdown. Features include an excellent navigation menu and syntax highlighting of code samples. Documentation and code samples can be shown side by side. If you provide code samples in different programming languages, you can add tabs for switching between these languages. Price: free (open source) Swagger UI Automatically generates documentation described in a Swagger specification. Swagger2Markup can be used to combine this documentation also with hand-written documentation. Price: free (open source) https://github.com/Swagger2Markup/swagger2markup Docbox Creates REST API documentation in a a two-column layout from Markdown files. Price: free (open source) https://github.com/tmcw/docbox DapperBox Combines API documentation with documentation written in Markdown. Price: free (open source) agilo Creates API documentation from data written in the Blueprint Markdown-based document format. Comes with various themes. Price: free (open source) https://github.com/danielgtaylor/aglio Javadoc Generates API documentation in HTML format from doc comments in source code. Price: free (freeware) TypeDoc Documentation generator for TypeScript projects. Price: free (open source) Doxygen Documentation system for C++, C, Java, Objective-C, Python, IDL, Fortran, VHDL, PHP, and C#. Price: free (open source) http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/ VBDoxygen Visual Basic add-in that converts VB code into java-like syntax for processing via Doxygen. Price: free (open source) https://sourceforge.net/projects/vbdoxygen/ ROBODoc Creates source code documentation by extracting comments from shell scripts and source code written in C, C++, Fortran, Perl, Assembler, DCL, DB/C, Tcl/Tk, Forth, Lisp, COBOL, Occam, Basic, HTML, Clarion, and any other language that supports comments. Price: free (open source) https://rfsber.home.xs4all.nl/Robo/index.html apiDoc Creates documentation from comments in the source code. Price: free (open source) ApiGen Specialized on documentation for PHP projects. Price: free (open source) https://github.com/ApiGen/ApiGen RDoc Specialized on documentation for Ruby projects. Price: free (open source) documentation.js Generates documentation from comments in JavaScript source code (JSDoc syntax). Price: free (open source) MireDot REST API documentation generator for Java. Takes the Java code you already have and compiles it into documentation in HTML and Word format. Price: starting at approx. $15 per month JSDuck API documentation generator for Sencha JavaScript frameworks. Works with Markdown. Price: no license info given https://github.com/senchalabs/jsduck FunDoc Tool designed to ease the documentation process of simulation models. Gathers simulation model information from Matlab/Simulink and Ascet. Price: not published Hologram Automatically builds a styleguide from the comments in a CSS file. The comments and thus the result can be formatted in Markdown. Price: free (open source) http://trulia.github.io/hologram/ Aigis Automatically builds a styleguide from the comments in a CSS file. Uses Markdown for formatting. Price: free (open source) https://aigis-styleguide.github.io/aigis/ styledown Creates a CSS styleguidse from comments in a CSS file. Price: free (open source) https://github.com/styledown/styledown Gelato Creates a full-featured developer portal. Price: not published docToolchain AsciiDoc toolchain for software architecture documentation. https://github.com/docToolchain/docToolchain
Some tools listed in other sections partly provide similar features. Also look at: |
HelpConsole Web-based help authoring tool with full support of conditional content, context-sensitive help, and PDF output. Price: starting at approx. $299 http://www.browselab.com/helpconsole_com.htm ClickHelp Modern online help authoring tool in a web browser. Created manuals can be hosted in the vendor’s cloud. Content management and single-sourcing functionality to produce online and printed documentation from the same source (PDF, DOCX, EPUB, ODT, RTF, MHT, HTML). Can import existing help files from the CHM format, preserving styles and scripts. Supports both WYSIWYG and source code editing of topics. Price: starting at approx. $43 per month Manula Easy-to-use manual authoring tool. Creates public and private online manuals that look great on desktops, tablets and phones. Also generates downloadable PDF manuals. Price: starting at approx. $10 per month Corilla Online Markdown-based editor for collaborative authoring, version control, topic reuse and publishing to HTML. Price: starting at approx. $25 per month HelpServer Web-based CMS for help and documentation. Supports structured authoring and team authoring. Creates various output formats, such as HTML, video, and PDF. Price: not published ReadMe.io Hosted online documentation solution with a special focus on API and developer documentation. Price: staring at approx. $59 per month and per project 3Rabbitz Book Simple server-based authoring platform that can create various types of output files. Price: free “Personal” version; “Standard” version approx. $2000 Docmenta Web application for creating online and printable documentation from a single source. Price: free (open source) |
The following wikis are especially recommendable for technical documentation and user assistance purposes. Commercial wiki that, in particular in combination with the SCROLL add-ons of K15t Software meets the requirements of a professional help authoring tool. There are also some plugins available for code and API documentation. Price: starting at approx. $10 https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/net.meixxi.confluence.docs.docs-plugin/server/overview MindTouch TCS Collaborative help system for creating product help communities with a wiki-like interface. Also has an option to provide context-sensitive information. Price: not published Dokit Based on MediaWiki. Can use templates, forms, and metadata to structure and organize content. Built-in translation features, version management, rights management, semantic search, social functions, PDF export. Price: not published Dozuki Guidebook Price: not published BlueSpice Price: free (open source); there is also a more powerful commercial version available MediaWiki Price: free (open source) https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org dokuwiki Price: free (open source) Tiki Wiki Price free (open source) TWiki Price: free (open source) Ponydocs MediaWiki-powered documentation platform. Price: free (open source) http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Ponydocs/latest/Content/WhatisPonydocs |
DAUX.IO Documentation generator that uses a simple folder structure and Markdown files to create WebHelp on the fly. Needs to be installed on a web server. Key features are: Mobile-friendly responsive design, auto syntax highlighting, themes, flat design style, shareable SEO-friendly URLs, as well as support for Google Analytics and Piwik Analytics. Price: free (open source) Doctor Documentation server that creates an HTML documentation web site from markdown files stored in any place, such as on github, dropbox, google drive, etc. Price: free (open source) https://github.com/minio/doctor MkDocs Static site generator geared towards building project documentation. Documentation source files are written in Markdown. For creation, needs Python installed on your system. Price: free (open source) docpress Creates simple static documentation sites. Price: free (open source) docsify Creates simple static documentation sites. Price: free (open source) Docute Creates simple static documentation sites. Price: free (open source)
The following is a list of some general open source static site generators that transform reStructuredText or Markdown into static web sites: https://github.com/eudicots/Cactus https://github.com/nanoc/nanoc
Many more static site generators are listed here along with figures about their current popularity: Documentation theme for Jekyll Price: free (open source) https://github.com/tomjoht/documentation-theme-jekyll Documentation theme for GRAV Price: free (open source) https://github.com/getgrav/grav-theme-learn2 CloudCannon Cloud CMS for Jekyll. Pulls the repository and rebuilds your site. Changes made directly on CloudCannon are committed back to the repository. Price: Starting at approx. $25 per month Forestry CMS for static sites with support for Jekyll, Hugo, and Git. Price: personal version free; other versions starting at approx. $9 per month |
Dreamweaver Price: approx. €28 per month Responsive Site Designer Price: approx. $189 https://www.coffeecup.com/designer/ SitooWEB Price: approx. $499 NetObjects Fusion Price: approx. €130 Adobe Muse Price: approx. €28 per month https://www.adobe.com/products/muse.html Pinegrow Web Editor Price: approx. $100 BlueGriffon WYSIWYG HTML editor. Price: approx. €70; there is also a free version available MAGIX Xara Web Designer Premium Price: approx. €100 https://www.magix.com/int/xara-web-designer/ WYSIWYG Web Builder Powerful visual web page editor. No HTML code control, but HTML code snippets can be inserted. Price: approx. $50 http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com Website Realizer Simple WYSIWYG desktop editor for creating responsive web sites. Price: approx. $60 http://www.websiterealizer.com Mobirise Easy-to-use software for creating responsive web sites that consist only of one or a few HTML pages. Price: free (freeware); there are some extra paid features and templates available TOWeb Easy-to-use responsive website creation software. Price: approx. €49 TemplateToaster In addition to creating templates, can also be used for setting up single static web pages. Price: approx. $149 openElement Visual website editor. Price: free (freeware) RocketCake WYSIWYG editor for crating responsive web sites. Price: free (freeware); “Professional Edition” approx. €39. http://www.ambiera.com/rocketcake/ KompoZer Complete WYSIWYG web authoring application with preview mode, HTML mode, tag mode, and an integrated CSS editor. Price: free (open source) Amaya W3C’s editor and browser. Integrates editing and browsing functions into one application. Price: free (open source) The HTML Editor Advanced HTML editor. Price: approx. $29 https://www.coffeecup.com/html-editor/ Enjoy CSS Visual CSS3 editor. Price: free (web application) Maqetta Visual, browser-based editor for HTML5 user interfaces. Price: free (open source) Notepad++ Advanced code editor and text editor. To meet specific requirements, there are many specialized plug-ins available. Price: free (open source) https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ UltraEdit Editor for text, XML, HTML, PHP, Java, JavaScript, Perl, and other programming languages. Can also be used for comparing files, for advanced find and replace operations, and much more. Price: approx. $100 jEdit Cross-platform editor for which a large number of plug-ins are available. Price: free (open source) Brackets Code editor for web designers and front-end developers. Pushes HTML and CSS to your browser for preview as you code. Price: free (open source) Aptana Studio Complete web development IDE. Price: free (open source) MarkdownPad Markdown editor for Windows with a live preview. Price: approx. $15; there is also a free version available |
HTML Help Workshop Microsoft’s compiler and basic editing tool for the compiled Microsoft help format (CHM). Price: free (freeware) https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/ (search for “help workshop”) FAR HTML Toolbox for those who create HTML help with a standard HTML editor. The collection also contains tools for testing and to decompiling CHM files. Price: approx. $72 http://www.helpwaregroup.com/products/far XMLmind Web Help Compiler (whc) Converts a set of static XHTML pages to web help. Price: free (open source) http://www.xmlmind.com/ditac/whc.shtml chmProcessor Generates compiled help (CHM), JavaHelp, or browser-based HTML help from Microsoft Word files or from HTML files. Splits the source documents by title formats. Price: free (open source) http://chmprocessor.sourceforge.net Precision Helper Compiles a full-featured CHM file from a set of HTML files. Can also be used to create basic browser-based help from the same set of files, and to merge several HTML files into one singe HTML file. This single HTML file can then be imported into a text processor to create a printed user manual from the same source. Clear, modern user interface. Support for context-sensitive help and index keywords. Various helpful project management features. Price: free (freeware) http://www.be-precision.com/products/precision-helper/ HelpSetMaker Uses its own markup language for editing the help texts. Creates HelpSets for the JavaHelp online help system, web page sets for display in a browser, and LaTeX source to be passed through “pdflatex” for obtaining a PDF document. Price: free (open source) https://sourceforge.net/projects/helpsetmaker/ AurigaDoc Java-XML-XSL-based documentation tool for writing xml documents and converting them to other open formats like HTML, DHTML, PDF, PostScript, FO, RTF, Java Help, and HTML Help (CHM). For Windows and Linux. Price: free (open source) http://aurigadoc.sourceforge.net JHelpDev Assists you in creating a JavaHelp set from existing HTML files via a graphical user interface. Price: free (open source) https://sourceforge.net/projects/jhelpdev/ MSHC Migrate Utility Converts older help projects over to MS Help 3. Price: approx. $52; free for noncommercial use http://mshcmigrate.helpmvp.com PDFreactor Automatically creates PDF files from HTML and XML input. Uses CSS for page layout and styles. Price: approx. $2950 ChmHelp Toolkit Can decompile CHM files to HTML files, convert CHM files to Microsoft Word documents for editing and printing, and convert CHM to browser-based help. Price: approx. $299 HTML Executable Creates stand-alone desktop EXE applications from web sites or from any group of HTML pages and linked media files. Can for example be used to convert browser-based help into an executable. Makes it possible to require a license key to access information. Price: starting at approx. $46 Nativefier Creates a desktop application for any web site (such as web help). For Windows, Linux, and Mac. Price: free (open source) https://github.com/jiahaog/nativefier Softany CHM to PDF Converter Converts CHM files into PDF files with cover, table of contents, header, footer, page number, etc. Price: approx. $99 Asciidoctor Text processor and publishing toolchain for converting AsciiDoc content to HTML5, DocBook, and other formats. Price: free (open source) |
elevio Easily provides context sensitive help in various forms for web applications. Price: starting at approx. $41 per month edc Solution for editing and embedding contextualized user help and onboarding information. Price: approx. €3200 per year http://www.easydoccontents.com WalkMe Platform for adding intelligent user guidance to an application. Price: not published; there is also a free version available IRIDIZE Platform for creating interactive product guides and walkthroughs primarily for employee training and web users. Price: starting at approx. $47 per month InlineManual Solution for creating walkthroughs, onboarding guides, and tooltips. Price: starting at approx. $28 per month whatfix Adds interactive guides on top of an application. Price: not published Userlane Adds information for onboadring and staff training to an application. On their web site, Userlane use a neat comparison: They compare their product to the navigation system of a car. While the car system guides the driver safely to the destination, Userlane guides the users of a software step by step to his or her final destination. Price: not published Product Tour Displays step by step instructions on top a web application. The user experience adapts to the device size. Price: approx. $50 https://codyhouse.co/gem/product-tour/ Embedded help system jQuery plug-in that adds animated “Show me” help to web pages. Price: free (open source) https://sourceforge.net/projects/embeddedhelp/ Guiders-JS JavaScript library for taking a user step by step through a web application (guided tour), and for adding embedded help to a web application. Price: starting at $5 per year https://github.com/pickhardt/Guiders-JS pageguide.js Enables you to set up interactive, visual guides to elements on web pages. Price: free (open source) http://tracelytics.github.io/pageguide/ intro.js Adds a step-by-step guide to a web site. Price: starting at approx. $10 Joyride Enables you to set up a tour wizard for a web site. Price: free (open source) |
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