Any Windows application typically includes a help file, which provides general information about the software, a description of the user interface, step-by-step instructions for using certain features, tips and tricks, and other useful details. You can use this help file as a self-training tool to learn about the software by pressing the F1 key. In many cases, it’s faster to find an answer to your question in the help file than to search for it online, let alone contact technical support.
And if you are an IT administrator, technical support specialist, or software developer, you may have faced the task of writing help documentation for your users including instructions on how to install, use, and maintain the operating system and software programs. To create this documentation, you can use a help authoring tool that covers many aspects related to creating help files and user manuals. It allows you to produce technical documentation in various formats, such as a Windows (.CHM) help file, online help system that works in a web browser, or Adobe PDF document.
Let’s take a look at how a help authoring tool can assist you in writing, formatting, and publishing software help files and other technical documents.
Build the Table of Contents of Your Help File
First of all, you need to plan and build the Table of Contents structure of your help file. Most help authoring tools include a built-in TOC editor, which allows you to easily add Chapters (Headings), Topics, Links to external documents, and other items.
When working on the TOC hierarchy, it is essential to build a logical structure of your help file, so the users will be able to navigate through the chapters and sub-chapters and find the relevant topics. Fortunately, in the help authoring tool, you can easily edit the TOC structure, and, if necessary, use the drag-n-drop method to move topics between chapters.
Write Help Documentation in a Specialized Word Processor
While you can write your documentation and user instructions using a regular text editor, such as Notepad or Microsoft Word, specialized documentation software offers several advantages.
The word processor in this user-friendly help authoring tool works similarly to Word, so you will find familiar commands for writing and formating your texts. At the same time, HelpSmith allows you to define a non-scrolling area for the topic’s title, insert hyperlnks to other topics in your help project, use variables for repeating values, add navigation links, insert a breadcumb object, generate a list of related links, and include other elements which should be present in a help file.
When it comes to editing objects in a document, HelpSmith allows the technical writer to mass-edit the properties of objects across all topics. For instance, you can change the appearance of horizontal lines across all the topics with just a few clicks. This eliminates the need to manually find and edit each horizontal line in every topic.
Beside that, the help authoring tool ensures that any objects contained in a document will look and function properly when exported to different formats including HTML-based documentation, PDF, or even text-based Markdown format.
Benefit from Using Styles to Format Your Texts Quickly
The word processor in HelpSmith allows you to format your texts as usually by changing the Font, Size, Color, Bold, and other formatting attributes through the Write tab in the Ribbon toolbar. However, if you work on a big number of topics, it makes sense to use styles available through the Styles pane.
For example, you can use the Normal style for the main text, Heading 1-Heading 3 styles for the section titles within an individual topic, the Highlight style to indicate the names of menu commands and buttons in the texts of user instructions, list styles for bullets and numbering, and table styles.
The Key Benefits of Using Styles for Text Formatting
- Use Headings to structure texts within a topic into sections.
- Setup and update formatting of texts easily in a single place.
- Quickly create bulleted and numbered lists by using list styles.
- Format tables in the entire documentation with table styles.
- Re-use your styles and formatting in different help projects.
Thus, styles allow you to quickly format text, lists, tables, as well as change the formatting of these elements throughout the documentation.
Add Screenshots to the Texts of User Instructions
The HelpSmith help authoring tool offers image-editing features that allow you to easily supplement user instruction texts with screenshots. Additionally, you can highlight UI elements discussed in your documentation by adding special annotations to the screenshot.
This way, you can create a comprehensive help file that is as clear and understandable as possible for your application’s users.
Supply Instructions and Help Documentation in Multiple Formats
Depending on the needs of your users, you can supply your documentation in various formats. With the help authoring tool, you can compile a .CHM help file which is mostly used for Windows application, or select the Web Help format to create a browser-based help system which can be published on a website, or generate a PDF document. Alternatively, you can export your help project to the Markdown format. Markdown is a plain text format that allows you to include formatting, hyperlinks, images, tables, and other elements using special syntax.
The main advantage of using a help authoring software is that it allows you to generate documentation in multiple formats from the same source project. If needed, you can set up batch compilation tasks and apply build tags to quickly produce the required version of your help file, online manual, or hard copy.
Conclusion
As you can see, HelpSmith is an excellent solution to write, format, and create help files in multiple formats, such as Windows (CHM) help files, browser-based Web Help systems, PDF documents, and even Markdown, the documentation format which is often used by IT professionals. The higher edition of the help authoring tool also provides support for the XML format and includes advanced options for teamwork and translations. With the powerful features of the documentation software including the word processor with styles and the integrated image annotating tool, you will be able to create comprehensive and easy-to-understand help files for your users.
