Help Authoring with HelpSmith: a Professional Tool for Quick Help File Creation
Practically all desktop applications and web services today provide their users with a help system or manual. Such a help system solves a number of important tasks, such as explaining to users how to use a specific feature or accomplish something with the program, reducing the effort spent on technical support, etc. Even though a quality help system is an integral part of your application, its creation is most often still not an easy task. As the developer, you have to determine which help format to use, what help authoring tools and related utilities to use, how to integrate the help system with your product and provide context-sensitive Help, and so on.
Moreover, a modern help authoring tool should meet today's standards for help authoring: it should have Unicode support for working with multiple languages; support for modern image and video formats (making it possible to illustrate your manual); it should allow you to easily provide good navigation and add search functionality for your help system, and more. The set of features required for a help authoring tool depends on the particular project. There are a number of tools for technical writers which can solve almost any of these tasks - but these programs have the common disadvantage of complexity and high cost.
What are the Benefits of HelpSmith?
The initial idea behind HelpSmith was to make an affordable help authoring tool, with a professional feature set and slight learning curve, and allow developers and technical writers to create professional help systems and printed documentation with a minimum of effort. HelpSmith currently supports such varied output help formats such as HTML Help (CHM), Web Help (an HTML-based help system that can be accessed with a regular browser), and Printed Manual. Also, HelpSmith allows you to create PDF documents using a third-party PDF printer utility. The developers of the help authoring tool combined an easy-to-use environment with features making it possible to create full-featured help systems and supply documentation in multiple help formats. A single help project can be exported into any number of output help formats, thanks to single-source support.
The main features of HelpSmith are a built-in word processor with live spell checker (dictionaries for many languages are available) plus tools for quick creation of the Table of Contents, keyword index, and other navigation elements. HelpSmith also has support for Unicode, Dynamic Styles, Topic Templates, and Variables. There is a smart Project Merge feature that simplifies working on the same help system by a team of technical writers and making translations into other languages. HelpSmith offers you an advanced way to manage image and video files and supports all widely used multimedia formats, including Flash and QuickTime animations. Of course, it is also possible to integrate HTML Help and Web Help systems into your application and provide context-sensitive Help.
HelpSmith main window
Full-featured Word Processor, Dynamic Styles and Templates
Writing help topics will clearly be the largest part of work on any help system. Thanks to a full-featured word processor with dynamic styles and support for templates, HelpSmith makes it possible for you to concentrate on writing: you can type text in multiple languages, insert pictures and videos, tables, create hyperlinks to other topics in your help system as well as links to external resources on the Internet, insert breadcrumb placeholders, and everything else you may need. Dynamic styles and templates are powerful tools which you can use to customize the appearance of your help system at any time, saving time otherwise spent on editing each help topic manually.
HelpSmith's dynamic styles are similar to those in Microsoft Word. The idea is that formatting information is stored separately from content. Moreover, a style can contain different formatting and appearance attributes for different output help formats. So you can even make the same content appear differently in HTML Help, Web Help, or in Printed Manual format.
Templates are another flexible feature allowing you to easily customize your help system. HelpSmith allows you to create an unlimited number of templates and even offers a set of pre-built designs for new templates. A template is a document that can be edited with HelpSmith's word processor just like a regular help topic. The difference is that a template usually contains the content parts which are the same for all or for a series of help topics: a header (containing the topic title and a breadcrumb object, for example), a footer, and the main part.
Dynamic Styles
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Breadcrumbs editing in a topic template 
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As usual, you have complete freedom while working with topic templates. You can set a template to be used for all help topics or apply a template for individual help topics. Additionally, different output help formats can use different templates for the same topics, and so on. Since a template is a document, you can create an original design for it that matches your corporate style, for example.
Support for Text Variables
HelpSmith includes support for text variables, which are divided into system and user variables. A variable is a placeholder that can be inserted into the text of a help topic, topic template, or in the text of some parameters. When you compile your help system, the variable objects are replaced with their actual values. This can be very useful, as you can store any value which appears in many places throughout your help system (such as application version information). And when you need to update a particular value, simply update it in the dialog box that controls all of the variables for your help project.
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Text variable editing in a topic template 
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Compiled result in HTML Help (CHM) 
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Advanced Multimedia Features
HelpSmith provides you with a convenient and powerful approach to working with images and video files. The program automatically puts all multimedia files that you use in your help project into a single media repository which is saved with your project. This, in turn, gives you the following benefits: you do not have to copy any media files manually (so it becomes much easier to distribute your help project), and it becomes much easier to update a screenshot used in more than one help topic since you simply update the picture in the media repository and do not have to find and edit the topics manually. The Media Repository feature can be used to organize images and video files into folders, which is also useful for large help projects.
Single media repository
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Embedded video in HTML Help (CHM) 
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Providing Good Navigation is Easy
Creating a Table of Contents, keyword index, and managing HTML Help windows will hardly slow you down as you complete your project. In fact, you can create a Table of Contents (TOC) in just minutes by moving the topics and topic groups to the TOC pane. Of course, you can add and edit TOC items manually when you need to change the default icon, edit the address to which an item refers, etc.
Similarly, it is easy to work with Keywords/A-Keywords in HelpSmith. You can use the Keywords tool to add new keywords for the currently selected help topic and to edit topic associations for a particular keyword as well. Then you can create hyperlinks that will display a list of related topics that are associated by one or more keywords or a-keywords.
HTML Help systems allow you to customize some attributes of the help viewer window and create secondary windows. This can be useful when you want to display a help topic without closing the previously opened content. And this is what HelpSmith allows you to do as well, thanks to the built-in help window editor: create secondary windows; set desired options; edit the toolbar buttons; create custom buttons; and modify the default position and style of the HTML Help viewer.
HTML Help (CHM) windows editor
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Output Help Systems and Context-Sensitive Help
Thus, HelpSmith includes many tools that let you quickly create good-looking help files and manuals with customized designs, a professional feel, and easy navigation. HelpSmith includes even more features than those described here. But let's take a look at the result of working with the tool - help systems compiled in the HTML Help, Web Help, and Printed Manual output formats.
Web Help sample
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HTML Help sample
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Printed Manual preview 
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Both HTML Help and Web Help systems can be integrated with your application. On the HelpSmith website you will find resources explaining how to provide context-sensitive Help for applications written in different programming languages (C#, VB.NET, VB6/VBA, Delphi, etc.). Additionally, the product's help file contains information on how to integrate a Web Help system with your desktop or web application.
Download Your Free Evaluation Copy of HelpSmith
You have seen how HelpSmith can help you with your help authoring-related tasks. As a help authoring tool for quickly creating high-quality help files and manuals, it allows you to create a help project without the need to master technical details. In fact, you even do not have to know anything about HTML or CSS to create professional help systems. So HelpSmith is a help authoring tool that allows you to truly concentrate on writing - and to save your time and money as a result.
Want to see HelpSmith in action? HelpSmith is available for download from our website as a FREE 30-day evaluation version. You can download, install, and try out the product using the sample help projects that come with it (accessible from the "Samples" command in the Help menu).
Learn More About HelpSmith
- Buy HelpSmith for only $199 per license of less.
- Download your FREE evaluation copy of HelpSmith.
- See screenshots demonstrating HelpSmith working.
- Read about HelpSmith's features and benefits.
