HelpStudio Info Pages:

Create a help file quickly and easily with HelpStudio

HelpStudio is the fastest, easiest way to Create Help Files, publish and integrate them with your desktop or web based applications or components.

Generate help output in cross-platform plain HTML, HTML Help, Help 2.x or printable PDF.

Built in localization support means that you can take your Help File to a global audience if required.

HelpStudio is the Help Authoring Tool trusted by individuals and corporations worldwide since 2003

Download a Free Trial Version

Author and Collaborate

HelpStudio seamlessly combines a feature packed WYSIWYG authoring environment, Html based layout templates and customizable Content Widgets to make it simple to create and localize consistent, professional looking help systems with the minimum of effort. No dependencies on Word or other editors and integrates with Source Control for Team Working and Collaboration.

Samples

Classic Template

Live Sample (Responsive) Live Sample (Desktop) Live Sample (Mobile)

Sample Help File (Classic Template)  

Sample PDF Booklet 

Material Template

Live Sample (Responsive) Live Sample (Desktop) Live Sample (Mobile) 

Sample Help File (Material Template)

Sample PDF Booklet

Why Choose HelpStudio?

  • Import your existing content from Html Help 1.x projects, word documents, RoboHelp projects or plain html files;
  • Create multiple outputs to Html Help 1.x CHM file, Pdf, Help 2.x or browser help from a single source. Use Build Flags to mark content for inclusion or exclusion in a particular output.
  • Industry leading WYSIWYG editor including a rich set of functionality for authoring and maintaining your core content;
  • Template based topic editing makes it easy to adapt the style of your content over time without having to rework the actual content;
  • Capture screenshots and annotate them with the included Screen Capture and Image Markup tools;
  • Multiple members of your team can create Help Files using HelpStudio at the same time through integration with standard Source Control systems.

Demonstration Movies

These short movies provide a great way to discover what can be achieved using HelpStudio.

Introducing HelpStudio

This video provides an introduction to HelpStudio; creating topics, capturing a screenshot, conditionalizing content, creating Pdf booklets. (10 mins)

View this Movie

Publishing to a web site, ftp server or network location

This movie demonstrates the new Publishing functionality introduced in 2015.1. Publishing makes it easy to publish output generated by Document! X or HelpStudio to a web server or network location. A range of publishing methods are supported; you can publish to an Azure web site, a web site running on IIS, a web site that supports uploading via ftp, or directly to a local network path. (11 mins)

View this Movie

Introduction to Source Control

This video provides a demonstration on how to enable Source Control functionality, add a project to Source Control and access Source Control features in a Source Control enabled project. (6 mins)

View this Movie

Automatic optimization for Tablet and Mobile devices

This video demonstrates how the Responsive Output feature allows you to generate content that automatically adapts to the device type of the browser, providing an optimal experience for Mobile, Tablet and Desktop users from a single output. (5 mins)

View this Movie

Introduction to Localization features

This video will demonstrate how to use the localization features by enabling localization and creating both an English and Japanese output from the Document! X .NET sample project (9 mins).

View this Movie

Using Build Profiles to create multiple outputs

This short video provides a demonstration of how you can configure a project to create multiple outputs from a single source, with each output driven by a separate options defined in the Build Profile. (3 minutes)

View this Movie

More Movies

Comprehensive Project Tools

In addition to the core authoring functionality, HelpStudio includes a suite of project tools that enable you to ensure the quality of your final CHM file:

  • Validate all of the links in your help system using the Project Link Checker;
  • Check spelling throughout the project using the built in spell checker, which comes complete several european dictionaries;
  • Find and Replace throughout all of your content using the integrated Project Find and Replace;
  • Check your project for accessibility and standards compliance using the provided Project Analyzer.

Output to Compiled, Web, Tablet, Mobile and PDF

Output to  Cross Platform Web Help (automatically responsive for Tablet and Mobile),  Html Help (CHM),  Help 2.x (Visual Studio 2002-2008),  Microsoft Help Viewer (Visual Studio 2010-2015) and  PDF from a single source and automatically publish to a web site, ftp server or network location.

Easily integrate the generated output with one of several popular Community Comment services.

Localization Ready for a Global Market

When your application goes global you want your Help File to be ready. In HelpStudio you can work with multiple locales within a single project, avoiding the traditional "localization drift" problem when trying to maintain multiple translations of the same CHM file.

HelpStudio includes a set of features designed to help you effectively localize your content:

  • Create any number of locales for your project but only define the Table of Contents, Topic, Glossary structures once - avoiding "localization drift";
  • Use the Xml Import Export wizard to extract only localizable content to a format optimized for use by translation companies;
  • Standard terminology in the HelpStudio Templates comes pre-translated to several languages;
  • The Localization Report allows to accurately track which content requires translation by recording timestamps each time content is edited or translated;
  • Configure different spelling dictionaries for each Locale that you work with.

Content Widgets: A unique way to author complex content

One challenge that anyone will face when attempting to create CHM files is providing the kind of rich content features that users of modern help systems expect, whilst not requiring a large investment of time and effort in creating and maintaining such content. HelpStudio is unique in making it genuinely quick and easy to include (and adapt over time) rich content features by providing a customizable and extendable set of re-usable Content Widgets.

Imagine that you wanted to include a drop down section in your content (a drop down section consists of a header and initially hidden associated content which is shown / hidden when the header is clicked). In a traditional authoring tool you would need to include a complex mix of Html and Javascript in order to provide this kind of dynamic feature. In HelpStudio, simply insert a Drop Down Section widget, edit the header and drop down content as you wish. HelpStudio ships with a set of standard Widgets that can be customized and extended as you wish.

What HelpStudio Customers Say

"Managing documentation as part of developing software can be a surprisingly complex process. With HelpStudio we were able to create and maintain high-quality up-to-date documentation in a short amount of time and with very little overhead.

The flexibility of the HelpStudio made it easy to manage even complex tasks including localization and inclusion of "live" code snippets."

Henrik Frystyk Nielsen,
Group Program Manager, Microsoft

"We have been using HelpStudio since it first became available.

HelpStudio provides a nice blend of built-in functionality with full customizability, flexibility, and excellent support.

HelpStudio allows us to painlessly combine our API documentation with our User Guide documentation into one file that is easily integrated with our COM and Visual Studio products."

Issam Elbaytam,
VP of Technical Marketing, Data Dynamics

Download a Free Trial Version