Help Authoring on Steroids
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by: rrich2008
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Make CHM HTML Help 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 powerful word processor 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. Create full-featured tables, insert bookmarks, hyperlinks, graphical and video files, and so on. Finally, as an ultimate help authoring 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 support.
Make Web Help from the Same Source Help Project
You can build 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 export your help project into other help formats) and HelpSmith will prepare all the necessary files. A WebHelp system created with HelpSmith includes a collapsible TOC (working the same way like in CHM), a keyword Index, and the Search feature.
All you have to do then is just upload all the files of your browser-based (HTML) help system to your internet server or simply copy them to a shared folder if you want to provide access for colleagues in your network.
Supply Printed Manual Documentation
HelpSmith allows you to supply documentation both in the electronic (with the mentioned ability to create CHM and WebHelp files) 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 Word or other word processor you prefer, for instance, to demonstrate it to your clients who may have no the HelpSmith installation on their pc.
Save Your Time by Using Dynamic Styles
Mentioned above, dynamic styles is a must-have facility for any help authoring software. 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 will not 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 options to the selection.
In addition, HelpSmith allows you to specify alternative views for a specific style (including your own styles), so the same style can have different views when the project is compiled into HTML Help, Web Help, or exported as a printed manual.
Styles will save much of your time and dramatically speed up the process of writing documentation.
Advanced Way to Manage Graphical Files
HelpSmith lets you use multimedia files in your help files and offers an alternative way to control that multimedia. All media files that you add into your project automatically get into a single repository. This approach makes it possible for you not to worry about copying any file from its initial location on your computer. In case you need to copy the entire project to another computer, for instance, 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 single 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 bitmaps (.BMP) or metafiles into a more appropriate graphical format such as .PNG, .JPEG, or .GIF when you export your project into HTML Help or Web Help format, for example.
No Need to Learn Anything
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 help files and documentation without the necessity to learn anything about technical aspects of the help files creation. There is no need to code .HTML or .CSS or even know anything about it. By concentrating on writing with the help of such tools as the full-featured style system, you will complete your help project much faster than it could be done with any other help authoring application.
Article Source: http://articles-collections.com
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.
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