How to Choose a Help Authoring Tool

When you pour your energy into creating a great software application, you don't want to settle for second-rate documentation. After all, what good is a piece of software that nobody knows how to use? You want to give users the most complete and instructive online help possible so they can appreciate the full capabilities of your software.

But with so many help authoring tools available, how do you choose one that meets your needs?

First, take a close look at the system requirements for your software. These requirements will often help narrow down your options, because the help format you choose must be compatible with the computer systems owned by your users.

Several help formats are available. Browser-based help formats will run on most modern computers as long as they have an Internet browser, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, installed. Other online help formats may require a run-time environment such as the Java Runtime Environment for viewing JavaHelp, or a proprietary help viewer such as Microsoft's HTML Help. Many of these help viewer applications can be downloaded for free by your users. Others may come pre-installed with the operating system and may only be available for that particular operating system. The amount of RAM available will also impact your choice; some help formats require more memory than others to run. When choosing a help format, you will have to keep all of these system requirements in mind.

After you have chosen a help format, start researching the available tools for producing online help in that format. Google is a great place to start; just use the help format as a search keyword. Your search results will likely turn up several help authoring tools. Most help authoring tools are capable of producing output in a variety of formats. Make a list of these tools that support your desired format.

Now consider the source material you have to work with. Do you have existing documentation that you will be converting to online help? If so, look for a tool that has native support for your current data, or that is capable of importing or converting that data. You do not want to re-type all of your existing documentation. Most authoring tools are capable of importing several types of data, such as Microsoft Word .DOC files, XML, HTML, and so on. RoboHelp, for example, offers versions that store your help topics in either Microsoft Word or HTML format. Macromedia Flare can import several file types, but converts help topics to XML. Choose a tool that makes your job easier by supporting your existing data.

Next, consider the features that you would like to offer for your users. Would your users benefit from a multi-frame layout that makes the table of contents, index, and other navigation features visible at the same time as the topics? Is your online help thorough enough to warrant full-text search? Choose a tool that produces the kind of help that will meet your users needs.

Last, but not least, consider the price of the help authoring software you wish to purchase. Prices vary greatly, from free open-source tools to robust authoring suites with built-in content management systems costing thousands of dollars. Your budget will definitely impact your choice of tools. Also, if you have multiple authors working on your online help, you may need to purchase multiple licenses for the product you choose.