Re: best inexpensive help authoring tools

[slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au]

Bill, if you just want the software for learning, many top-end tools can
be downloaded for free to use for evaluation. You could try several
different products and see which suits you best. I'm sure you'd learn more
about Help authoring this way, too.

AuthorIT V4 Desktop Edition (US$459) is a single-sourcing that lets you
output to several Help formats as well as PDF and Word. The evaluation
copy is full and unrestricted, excep that it inserts the string "AuthorIT
Evaluation" randomly in the output. http://www.author-it.com/

If you have access to FrameMaker, MIF2GO offers "... a free single-seat
license with lifetime support and upgrades to all unemployed technical
writers and help authors, and to underemployed technical publications
consultants."
See http://www.omsys.com/dcl/offer.htm for details.

HTML Help Workshop downloads and documentation are available from:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/hwMicrosoftHTMLHelpDownloads.asp


http://www.helpstuff.com/helpstuff.html#hats has a number of articles on
comparing and selecting Help authoring tools ranging from free to
very-not-free.

Good luck

Stuart Burnfield

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