Help Authoring on Steroids

Being a help writer you might have tried many help authoring tools - from primitive applications to complex and expensive software. My recent review tells about HelpSmith, a program that has become my favorite HAT, which really takes the process of creating help files to a new quality level. Let's take a look at what it allows you to do.

Create HTML Help (CHM) Files With HelpSmith, you can easily make professional CHM files. Based upon the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get principle, HelpSmith provides you with a full-featured text editor with native support for dynamic styles and the live spell checker feature. So the process of working on a help file simply gets to a new quality level. You can use full-featured tables, insert images, create hyperlinks, and so on. Finally, as an ultimate help authoring (see the online demo at http://www.helpsmith.com/help-authoring-on-steroids.php) solution, HelpSmith allows you to create the Table of Contents and the alphabetical Index for your help file just in several minutes thanks to the integrated editors with drag-and-drop ability.

Create Web Help from the Same Source You can generate Web Help by exporting all the data from your help project into a set of HTML files: simply click "Project/Create Web Help" on the menu or click the corresponding button on the toolbar (similarly to when you need to export into other help formats) and HelpSmith will prepare all the necessary files. A WebHelp system generated with HelpSmith includes a collapsible TOC (which works just like the TOC in HTML Help), a keyword Index, and the Search functionality.

All you have to do then is just upload all the files of your browser-based help system to your internet server or simply copy them to a shared folder if you want to provide access for other people in your network.

Create Printed Documentation HelpSmith allows you to supply documentation both in the electronic and printed formats. With HelpSmith, you can see all the results as they are before the final version of the documentation is compiled or printed out. You can print out the manual directly from HelpSmith; or you can export the manual into Microsoft Word, for example, to demonstrate it to your clients who may have no the HelpSmith installation on his or her pc.

Dynamic Styles will Save Much of Your Time Mentioned above, the HelpSmith system of dynamic styles is a unique but must-have facility for any help authoring tool. Styles allow you to store all information about formatting separately from topic documents, which lets you make any changes in formatting at any time without having to manually process lots of help topics.

Moreover, using styles, you won't have to apply the same parameters over and over while writing help topics. Just select the part of text and then double-click the necessary style to set the required formatting attributes to the selection.

Additionally, HelpSmith allows you to setup alternative views for a specific style (including your own styles), so the same style can have different views when the project is compiled into Web Help, CHM.

Thus, dynamic styles will save much of your time and dramatically speed up the process of writing help files.

Manage Graphical and Video Files Effectively as Never Before HelpSmith lets you use graphical files in your help files and offers an alternative way to control that multimedia. All media files that you insert into your project automatically get into a single storage. This approach makes it possible for you not to waste your time on copying any file from its initial location on your computer. In case you need to copy the entire project to another computer, for ex., to make a backup copy, all multimedia files are already stored in a single place together with your help project.

Another great benefit of the media repository is that you can update any graphical file without having to edit all the topics where that media is used. For instance, if you have a dialog window that has changes in the newer version of your software, you can create a new screenshot and insert it into the repository instead of the obsolete one.

Additionally, HelpSmith has an automatic converter for graphical formats that is able to convert metafiles (EMF) or bitmaps into a more appropriate graphical format such as JPEG, GIF, or PNG when you export your project into HTML Help or Web Help format, for example.

No HTML or CSS Coding Required HelpSmith is very easy to use just like a usual office application we use duirng our everyday computer activities. So even if you are not a help authoring professional, you can start writing documentation without the necessity to learn anything about technical aspects of the help files creation. There is no need to code HTML/CSS or even know anything about it. By concentrating on writing with the help of the features such as dynamic styles, you will complete your project much faster than it could be done with any other technical writing tool.

About The Author Robert Richardson is an independent technical writer and reviewer of help tools such as Dr.Explain, HelpSmith from http://www.helpsmith.com and others.