Help authoring

[erosolmi]

For those who have to write help files, my suggestion is to have a look at Help & Manual.
Web site: http://www.helpandmanual.com/

Very complete. Very active web support.
At the same time you can produce many output format (.chm, .html, .hlp, .doc, .pdf, ...) starting from the same help file.

Not cheap but worth all the money. I use it everyday.

Cheers
Eros

[mouser]

could not agree more -
there is a reason why it wins all the awards.  great application - tons of output options from a single help file.  super stable.
big thumbs up from me as well.

[Carol Haynes]

There is also HelpScribble (http://www.helpscribble.com/) which looks useful but is a lot cheaper.

[Mikes Software Co]

Has anyone tried VCHM (Visual CHM)? Roundabout $20.00 in price, and extremely simple to use, or at least I thought so. The folks whom produce this app reside in Asia, and I could not seem to get to their site as of the date I post this, which hopefully doesn't make this post meaningless =/

At any rate, here's another URL: http://www.wekasoft.com/vchm/

[cognitive]

Look at Dr.Explain : http://www.drexplain.com

Dr.Explain saves lots of time for making help files for your software application.
Dr.Explain captures windows from a live application, creates screenshots and automatically adds references to all window's controls: buttons, edit fields, radio buttons, dropdown lists, and other elements. You must just add some description if needed.
You may export a documentation project at once into HTML, CHM, or RTF help files with screenshots, color callouts, menus, and index page.


We offer 30% discount on Dr.Explain for the DC members: http://www.donationcoder.com/Discounts/index.html

[allen]

There is also HelpScribble (http://www.helpscribble.com/) which looks useful but is a lot cheaper.

Everything else the author makes is gold, if I had a use for it I'd give it a spin

[Carol Haynes]

Has anyone tried VCHM (Visual CHM)? Roundabout $20.00 in price, and extremely simple to use, or at least I thought so. The folks whom produce this app reside in Asia, and I could not seem to get to their site as of the date I post this, which hopefully doesn't make this post meaningless =/

At any rate, here's another URL: http://www.wekasoft.com/vchm/

Seems to work now - actually there are some interesting bits on that site - and the software is "cheap as chips" ...

Visual CHM looks interesting and at that price probably worth buying if you want to build help systems, documentation or just want to compile lots of useful stuff from the web into a compact and portable format.

[Edvard]

What about freeware options?

Microsoft's own Html Help Workshop:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/hwMicrosoftHTMLHelpDownloads.asp

Web2hh:
http://home.hetnet.nl/~hansienl/web2hh/web2html.htm

Helpmaster (lots of links, tutorials, etc.):
http://www.helpmaster.com/index.htm