Free Help Authoring Tools
Simplify your documentation writing tasks & authoring of Help files / manuals
Free Help Authoring, Manual and Documentation Writing Tools
Dreading the drudgery of writing your help files and online documentation for your software? Here are some tools that make it easier for you, by generating the necessary project files (such as WinHelp project files), manual pages (such as Unix man pages), RTF files, HTML files, include files, WinHelp .HLP files, HTMLHelp .CHM files, README files, etc, leaving you to concentrate on the task of writing the words. Included are also some tools and libraries that allow you to supercharge or modify your help systems such as to add Tip of the Day, tabs (for tabbed a help system), etc.
If you are looking for a commecial tool to create your help system,
Adobe RoboHelp
(yes, you probably have heard of it) allows you to create help files, context-sensitive help, PDF documentation, Microsoft .NET Framework help systems,
include multimedia files like video, MP3 sound files, Flash animations, etc. There are also wizards to help you create a variety of features in your help
system. A cheaper alternative is HelpScribble
which has a free
trial you can test to see if it meets your needs.
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Disclaimer
The information provided on this page comes without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. Just because a program, book, document or service is listed here or has a good review does not mean that I endorse or approve of the program or of any of its contents. All the other standard disclaimers also apply.
Free Help Authoring Tools
- Sandcastle Help File Builder
Sandcastle is a command line tool to create MSDN-style documentation from .NET assemblies and their XML comment files. It generates documentation that has a similar GUI to NDoc. It can produce an HTML 1.x (.CHM) file, an HTML 2.x (HxS) file, or a website. It can also generate a single help file from multiple assemblies.
- HelpMaker
HelpMaker is a freeware help authoring tool for Windows. It allows you to generate both CHM (HTML Help) as well as HLP (the old Windows Help) files.
- KeyHelp
KeyHelp is a free ActiveX control that lets you manage Microsoft HTML Help systems in a Windows program. You can handle popups, embedded windows, auto-resizing windows, etc. It apparently also has scripting features that extend HTML Help, including popups, training cards, shortcut commands, etc.
- HTML Help Switcher
If you need to keep different versions of HTML Help around on your system to test your help files or documentation, you may find this utility useful.
- Cheetah
Cheetah is a tool (actually an editor) that allows you to create RTF files for use with Microsoft Help Workshop. The editor supports syntax highlighting, topics, keyword trees, importing and exporting of various types of sources, visual contents designer, single topic editor, the ability to follow links, quick previews, smart replace, HelpContextMapping, etc.
- Shalom Help Maker
This Windows Help editor allows you to create Windows help files with images, pop-up windows, links to other pages, web pages, email addresses, etc. It will also automatically update your links when you change your pages. It is a stand alone program, and does *not* require you to have Microsoft Word installed. (You do, however, need the Microsoft Help Compiler, which can be downloaded from their page.)
- Microsoft HTMLhelp
The latest version of Microsoft's HTMLHelp can be downloaded from their web site. As you know, Microsoft intends that this version of help replace the original WinHelp. It requires you to have Internet Explorer installed on your computer (and that of your users). It includes the viewer, the Help Compiler, WinHelp converter, and other tools. Documentation on how to write HTMLHelp files can be found in the HTML Help documentation at Microsoft's site.
- Help2Man
This is a simple Perl script that allows you to generate a Unix manual page from program output. That is, it will attempt to re-arrange the output from a program that generates a standard "--help" or "--version" screen, into something that can be displayed as a manual page.
- Helpmake, Helpread
Helpmake is a compiler and Helpread a decompiler for Borland's TurboHelp files. The latter were help files that used to be distributed with Borland's DOS compilers. It comes with sources, and supports THELP up to version 2.1. Note that the documentation is in German only. However, since the source code is included, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out how to use it.
- Keytools
This package has a number of utilities that allow you to manage your HTMLHelp and WinHelp systems and even optimise "those Help systems for better performance." Included in the package are utilities to decompile a HTMLHelp file (and recreating the project file), recompile .chm files to reduce its size, lists and manage .CHM, .HLP, .CNT (Help table of contents) files registered in your system, locate duplicate html or Winhelp components in your system, examine and view .chm files, etc.
- KeyHH
This program "augments HTML Help by providing a replacement for HH.EXE that allows you to make multiple calls which are displayed in a single window."
- FTS (Full Text Search) for WinHelp3
If you are maintaining Windows 3.1 help files, you might be interested in the information on this site on how to add a full text search for such files. There are links on the site on how to obtain the necessary files for this purpose.
- RTFGen
This is a help authoring program that assists you in creating Windows Help files. You will still need to get the help compiler from Microsoft to compile the resulting RTF files. It runs on Win16 and Win32. (Note that the Windows Help Compiler is free as well and can be found listed on this page - see the entry on Microsoft Help Workshop.)
- Microsoft Windows Help Authoring Tool (WHAT)
This is Microsoft's own Windows Help Authoring Tool version 6.0 for use in developing help files for Windows 3.1. It's available free from Microsoft's public ftp site. It includes the help compiler (hcw.exe), documentation, etc. WARNING: the link leads to a downloadable file.
- Microsoft Help Workshop
If you don't have a help compiler for Windows 95/98/NT, or if you are using an older obsolete version, you can try getting this version, 4.03 at the time of this writing, from Microsoft's public ftp site. WARNING: the link leads to a downloadable file.
- Microsoft Help Compiler
If you need to develop help files for Windows 3.1, here is the latest (and probably last) version of Microsoft's Win16 Help compiler, available on their public ftp site. WARNING: the link leads to a downloadable file.
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