Best Help Authoring Tools for Startups - Page 2

In Technical Documentation, we often need to explain multi-steps procedures. We use bullet lists, we add screenshots and text. The more we add, the more likely it is that our readers will lose track. An Xplain, as we call it, is a series of slides freely arranged on a huge canvas to spark your creativity. HelpXplain is perfect for slideshows embedded into web pages and technical documentation. Create animated step-by-step tutorials and quick instructions in minutes instead of hours. The magic is in the method, HelpXplain animates a series of simple screenshots, each of which can be edited or replaced at any time. HelpXplain can also record multi-page screencasts of programs on your computer screen that run in autoplay mode like a video. Recording and editing them is massively easier and less stressful than trying to create a video! All Xplains are 100% standards-compliant HTML5 and Javascript.

​MindTouch is an enterprise-grade, AI-powered knowledge management platform designed to enhance customer self-service, agent assistance, and overall customer experience. It enables organizations to create, manage, and deliver consistent, personalized content across various touchpoints, including websites, support portals, and CRM systems. Key features include intelligent search capabilities, content personalization, access controls, and integration with tools like Salesforce and ServiceNow. The platform supports multilingual content and offers analytics to optimize knowledge base effectiveness. By providing a centralized repository for information, MindTouch helps reduce support costs, improve customer satisfaction, and increase operational efficiency. ​

Author-it cloud based component authoring solutions are purpose built for the needs of key industry sectors and their specific applications. As the only truly integrated end-to-end platform of its kind, we deliver user experiences specialized for the problems they solve and help bring content to life. Importing from Word, web, or legacy help systems is simple. Content is broken down into components automatically and stored in our Component Content Management System for reuse, versioning, translation and more. Invite non-technical writers and SMEs to collaborate securely without any coding with the Author-it end-to-end CCMS authoring solution. Discuss and approve changes in real-time, taking the bottlenecks out of the reviewing process.

MkDocs is a fast, simple and downright gorgeous static site generator that's geared towards building project documentation. Documentation source files are written in Markdown, and configured with a single YAML configuration file. There's a stack of good looking themes available for MkDocs. Choose between the built in themes, mkdocs and readthedocs, select one of the third-party themes listed on the MkDocs Themes wiki page, or build your own. Get your project documentation looking just the way you want it by customizing your theme and/or installing some plugins. Modify Markdown's behavior with Markdown extensions. Many configuration options are available. The built-in dev-server allows you to preview your documentation as you're writing it. It will even auto-reload and refresh your browser whenever you save your changes. MkDocs builds completely static HTML sites that you can host on GitHub pages, Amazon S3, or anywhere else you choose.

Daux.io is a documentation generator that uses a simple folder structure and Markdown files to create custom documentation on the fly. It helps you create great looking documentation in a developer friendly way. The navigation is generated automatically with all pages that end with .md or .markdown. To sort your files and folders in a specific way, you can prefix them with a number and underscore. Full access to the internal API to create new pages programatically. Work with pages metadata. 100% mobile responsive, 4 built-in themes or roll your own. Functional, flat design style, optional code float layout, and shareable/linkable SEO friendly URLs. Supports Google Analytics and Piwik Analytics. Change the output format. It is recommended you set only formats that support the live mode as this will also be read by the integrated web server. And you set the other formats (like confluence) only by command line.

GenHelp and GenHelp Pro are new generation tools to assist in documenting code and creating help files. They take source files and import them to produce a file that can be used to create several forms of documentation. The files provided can then be shipped out with components, giving a much more professional product. GenHelp can also produce simple normal help files without requiring knowledge of rich text coding. GenHelp is the basic version which imports Delphi/Object Pascal and C++/C files along with comments. It can produce WinHelp and simple Html output. This allows help files to be created for Delphi 3-7 and C++ Builder 3-6 as well as other IDEs. GenHelp Pro is the fully featured version which supports all versions of Delphi/C++ Builder/RAD Studio up to and including XE10. It has a 'Template' based help generation system so that any format of Help file is possible. At present HtmlHelp 1, HtmlHelp 2, Rich Text based manuals and Html output for Web sites is supported.

ONePUBS is a technical content publishing system that allows you to take control of your technical data and streamline the delivery process. Easily deploy product support material that matches product configuration, even during change cycles. Content is delivered to the secure web, client, or print environment of your choice. ONePUBS uses XML for standards-based content development, translation, and localization support, media management, and version control. This solution easily integrates with other ONeSOURCE content management modules and your existing business systems, too. Maximizes technical data and optimizes production workflow with systematic management, tracking, monitoring, and reporting capabilities. Complete system compatibility with proven processes and the ability to repurpose legacy data. Interoperability with Enterprise Resource Planning systems reduces drain on engineering resources.

From training to manuals, it's easy to create and share knowledge in minutes so your teams get the help and support they need to do their jobs right. Start by making photo and video snippets of the different steps of the instruction. Add the accompanying texts, explaining precisely what to do. Share with your colleagues or third parties through easy-to-read URLs or QR codes. Track searches, discover the most popular documents, and improve where needed. From training to manuals, it's easy to create and share knowledge in minutes so your teams get the help and support they need to do their jobs right.

Deliver the most accurate and up-to-date technical content possible. Our publishing suite for S1000D is an industry-proven publishing solution for technical content, with functionality optimized for each step of your publishing process. Manage complex technical documents and deliver critical information so that you can meet objectives, reduce mean time to repair (MTTR), and keep assets up-to-date and deployed. Getting started with S1000D is painless with our easy-to-learn tools. Streamline your S1000D project startup efforts by as much as 70% with SDL S1000D Foundation Suite. Our unique startup solution and services make it easy to build a compliant, solid foundation for any S1000D-based project. Create, edit, manage, and publish your data using one of the industry’s easiest to use common source databases (CSDB) to increase content accuracy and faster delivery across your content life-cycle.

Efficiently build, maintain and deploy maintenance instructions for large industrial assets with OnPlan work instruction software. OnPlan work instruction software by AssetOn is for maintenance departments who are dissatisfied with the time it takes to build and manage maintenance documents. With this in mind, OnPlan software and services let users quickly build, manage and deploy high quality work instructions and inspection sheets in a structured way using repeatable elements. This ensures jobs are well planned and safe, leading to fewer injuries and more efficient job execution. Specifically, the solution includes features designed for asset managers and owners of heavy industrial assets. Detailed hazard and control alerts, stop and halt steps, fatal risk management. Up to 50% reduction in document development and management costs. Reduce execution time by up to 20% with clear instructions and job readiness checks.

Quality product documentation is vital to your organization’s success and critical for your customers, suppliers, distributors and employees. The key to effective product documentation for complex equipment is integrated 3D communications. Whether it’s for maintenance, customer support, operational procedures or training, 3D communications provide intuitive, knowledge transfer, that users ‘get’ easily. However, traditional product documentation methods are error prone, costly and slow. Cortona3D RapidAuthor is a powerful cost-effective authoring suite giving organizations the flexibility to produce all support documentation such as interactive Parts Catalogs, Maintenance Manuals, Training Materials and Work Instructions. The tools included in the suite enable organizations to reuse existing CAD data or other 3D source material, to author interactive 3D visualizations for more effective support documentation, dramatically reducing effort and timelines.