Help Authoring Tools
Selecting a Help authoring tool can be a frustrating experience. Marketing and sales departments will try to convince you that their tool is the best (after all, that’s their job!). What you need…and what we try to provide…is an objective overview to some of the most popular tools (and a few that aren’t so popular).
First, visit HAT-Matrix.com to determine which HATs best meet your needs. This site lets you produce reports listing the HATs which the specific features you need. (Note: vendors must pay a fee to be listed at HAT-Matrix.com, so it might not include all HATs that you are interested in.)
If you are trying to decide which HAT to use, we suggest that you create a “wish list” that includes absolutely every feature that you want in a tool. We can then analyze it and, after we have finished, meet with you to share our findings. You can use the resulting information when proceeding. (You and your team can also analyze the “wish list”, using the reports at HAT-Matrix.com to produce a short list of applicable tools.)
To create your “wish list”, use the blank reports at HAT-Matrix.com:
- Blank Report #1: Includes descriptions toggle (for features with descriptions).
- Blank Report #2: Includes tickable check boxes and descriptions toggle.
Then, look at our PowerPoint presentation, Which Help Authoring Tool(s) Do You Choose? (choosing-hat.pdf, 360K), that discusses in more detail why you might want to consider a specific tool.
See the list of Tool Vendors at the MSHelpWiki if you want to access vendor Web sites.
Need more information? Several industry consultants, including JTF Associates’ Char James-Tanny, created test projects in different tools in 2003 (AuthorIT, Doc-To-Help, Dreamweaver, Mif2Go, RoboHelp, and WebWorks Publisher). View the HAT Comparison Output.
Visit the other pages in this section:
