Help-related resource pages
Since starting this blog, I've had a few requests to post links to various software products and resource pages for Help related authoring tools and services. I think this is a great idea. My posting these is explicitly not any kind of Microsoft official endorsement, but just giving a shout out to a variety of resources that you may find useful.
This list is also not exhaustive by any means. I will add additional links and blurbs as I get them or find them.
A few such sites that I'm closely aware of because of my interaction with the Microsoft Help MVPs are:
Help MVP site
This is a site owned and run by the Microsoft Help MVPs themselves. There are at least two entry points
- main page with general info about the Help MVPs and some related links
- mshcMigrate page with lots of great info about the new Help Viewer 1.0 release from Microsoft.
JTF Associates' HAT-Matrix.com (Char James Tanny)
Char says the following:
When you are looking for an authoring tool, be sure to include HAT-Matrix.com in your research. Start with the blank report (https://hat-matrix.com/blank_report_2.html) and select the features that matter most to you. Save the finished report and use it to determine which applications you should put on your “short list”. You can also compare features from the authoring tools included in HAT-Matrix by producing different reports. Visit https://www.hat-matrix.com.
The Helpware Group (Rob Chandler)
Rob says the following:
First established in 1996 The Helpware Group produces quality software that supports the various Microsoft Help technologies. The group is based in Melbourne Australia and headed by Help MVP Robert Chandler.
The Helpware web site contains many technical articles, tutorials and FAQ on MS Help technologies, Delphi and C#. Helpware’s mshcMigrate tool allows you to quickly migrate older help to Visual Studio 2010 help. H3Viewer is a free replacement viewer for VS 2010 Help. See all Helpware shareware products here: https://helpware.helpmvp.com/products
Finally, a new resource that I've been made aware of from Marc Achtelig of indoition engineering:
indoition.com (Marc Achtelig)
Marc says the following:
In addition to about 250 useful links for technical writers, the site for example provides checklists and up-to-date market surveys of more than 350 help authoring tools, screen capture tools, screencasting tools and other utilities for technical communicators. All information can also be downloaded as a PDF booklet (approx. 100 pages). The URLs are:
https://www.indoition.com/index.html
https://www.indoition.com/online-help-authoring-tools-survey.htm