Technical documentation

Editors review from Fiberdownload.com: Help & Manual rated top with 5 stars

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:28:12 +0100

Fiberdownload.com has written a detailed editors review about Help & Manual 5.4 and concluded it with a 5 stars award!

They wrote: "Although we're sure you heard it from many users, we have to tell you too that your application is great. We tested it and wrote a review about it which you can find on the above mentioned product page:

In short, Help & Manual is the best possible solution on the market today for developers to keep their own information up to speed and help ensure that they have the highest quality of information possible delivered in the least amount of time necessary to do so. Get a copy for yourself and see what it can do for you."

OpenOffice dictionaries for Help & Manual are coming

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:28:12 +0100

We are glad to announce that the ground work is laid for using OpenOffice spell checker dictionaries in Help & Manual! While the spell checker in Help & Manual for English is up to the standards, the dictionaries for other several languages are unfortunately not perfect. We need better dictionaries in H&M for German, Swedish, Spanish and couple of languages that are not supported yet. And you are going to get it!

OpenOffice has excellent spell checking dictionaries that can be used for free, and a vivid community helping to update them where necessary. However, using these dictionaries and therefore writing a new spell checker from ground is really a major undertaking.

To make this a little bit easier, we decided to start an Open Source project ourselfs, and publish the spell checker components separately. It's a matter of giving back to the community, too. We are also working very closely with the vendor of the current spell checking engine to combine both our work to our mutual advantage. This is a good example how open source and commercial software can peacefully coexist.

So... Swedish, Spanish, German and Russian help writers, stay tuned. We are working on spell checking and automatic hyphenation.

Help & Manual 5.4.0 - Build 1201

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 09:28:12 +0100

This is a minor bug fix update for Help & Manual 5.4.0! This update fixes two small problems: after importing source code documentation with Sandcastle, placeholder text at the bottom each page has been removed. The second bug is slightly more critical - since v5.4, topic keywords are automatically sorted when the topic is saved. Certain combinations of master/subkeywords were not sorted correctly. We recommend to install this updated version.

Help & Manual 5.4.0 Update

Fri, 4 Jun 2010 09:28:12 +0100

Help & Manual 5.4 with source code documentation and new PDF features released! Read more about the update by following the link below.

Best selling authoring tool - again!

Mon, 6 Apr 2010 16:14:12 +0100

It's official: Help & Manual is the best selling help and documentation tool on ComponentSource, the world's largest marketplace and community for software components. Help & Manual climbed up 8 steps ranking number #28 this year in the overall ComponentSource product charts, outdistancing any other help tool.

We are very proud of the Top Product award from ComponentSource. It not only confirms the popularity of our products, but emphasizes the pace at which we are still growing after so many years in business. Well done, EC Software!

Help & Manual 5.3.2 and Premium Pack update

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 16:14:12 +0100

We are glad to announce the availability of Help & Manual 5.3.2! This is a maintenance release, free for all version 5 users. The update focuses on minor improvements and and is recommended for all Help & Manual 5 users.
Together with Help & Manual 5.3.2 we have also released a maintenance update for Premium Pack, which now has the version number 1.24. You can check your current version by looking in the main help of Help & Manual -- the chapter for the Premium Pack will display the version number in its title. See the user forum for details on the changes.

Help & Manual 5.3.1 update

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 16:14:12 +0100

Just right before Christmas comes this update of Help & Manual 5.3.1! This is a maintenance release, free for all version 5 users. The update irons out minor glitches in the recently introduced German version and mostly improves performance in combination with version control systems.

Help & Manual 5.3 build 1025 and Premium Pack 1.23 update

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:14:12 +0100

This updated build of Help & Manual 5.3 fixes a translation bug in the recently released German version concerning the topic status.

Furthermore, the Help & Manual Premium Pack has been updated to version 1.23 with the following changes:
* Sortable table tooltips in Internet Explorer and CHM (bugfix)
* NoWrap added to headers in sortable tables
* Quotes and apostrophes in topic headers did not work with feedback button

Minor update: Help & Manual 5.3 build 1017

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 09:28:12 +0100

This updated build of Help & Manual 5.3 includes a small change improving the character spacing of particular True Type fonts in PDF.

Help & Manual 5.3 auf Deutsch verfügbar

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:28:12 +0100

Help & Manual 5.3 ist ab sofort mit deutscher Oberfläche erhältlich! Das Installationsprogramm enthält beide Sprachen (Englisch und Deutsch). Neben der deutschen Oberfläche gibt es allerdings zahlreiche weitere Neuerungen. Darunter volle Windows 7 Unterstützung, ein verbesserter Import von Microsoft Word mit Formatvorlagen, erweiterter Robohelp-Import, ein neues Kommandozeilen-Interface und zahlreiche Detailverbesserungen. Eine Komplettübersicht der neuen Features finden Sie unter diesem Link:

Help & Manual 5.3 released

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:28:12 +0100

We are glad to announce the availability of Help & Manual 5.3! This maintenance release is a free update for all version 5 users. If you are using Windows 7, we strongly recommend this update. New features include a German user interface, improved Word and Robohelp import, a new command line interface, browser preview of XML topic files and updated support for version control systems.

Online translation service for Help & Manual offers a seamless translation workflow

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 09:28:12 +0100

EC Software has teamed up with ICanLocalize, an online translation service for translating regular text, websites and, most importantly, Help & Manual projects directly. The service combines the advantages of top-end translation agencies with those of freelance translators. You'll get outstanding service, tailored exactly for the needs of your business, at a lower cost than you can negotiate with freelancers. Over the last two months we have worked closely with the team around Amir Helzer from ICanLocalize to develop a seamless translation workflow for Help & Manual.

Case study: Developer Express

Wed, 5 Aug 2009 09:28:12 +0100

Developer Express engineers feature-complete visual components, business frameworks and IDE tools for Visual Studio and Delphi-C++Builder. Their technologies help you build your best, see complex software with greater clarity, increase your productivity and create stunning applications for Windows and the web in the shortest possible time.
Since they are already using an in-house solution to deliver online help for their many products in various formats, the company was not really looking for a commercial help authoring tool, but for a PDF converter. After testing several products, they then tried Help & Manual and they were delighted. Here is what they had to say...

Small mainenance update for Help & Manual 5.2

Tue, 21 July 2009 09:28:12 +0100

This is a maintenance update for Help & Manual 5.2 with a couple of small changes that did not make it into the recent release.

Format painter is available on Quick Access Toolbar
Topic ID prefix is used as a suggestion for image files
Out-of-resources error on some rare multi-monitor configurations fixed
When renaming a style not all occurances of the style were changed
Webhelp output: small Japanese encoding problem fixed
Page breaks at the beginning of a list could not be removed
Changing a topic ID and moving to the next topic did not change the topic in the editor
Double clicking on the TOC while slightly moving the mouse triggered an error
New registry option whether images are scaled down in PDF output

Online help conferences and symposiums in September

Wed, 8 July 2009 09:28:12 +0100

Don't miss this events and meed us in Cardiff in September:

European Online Help Conference, 17th - 18th September 2009, Cardiff, UK
WritersUA User Assistance Symposium in Boston, U.S. - September 29, 2009

We will be presenting Help & Manual 5 on the help conference in Cardiff! Take this chance to meet Tim and Alexander in person.

Help & Manual 5.2 released

Thu, 23 June 2009 09:28:12 +0100

We are glad to announce the availability of Help & Manual 5.2! Despite classified as a minor update, this new version really has a long feature list. Many of the new features have been suggested by you in the recent Help & Manual user survey. Check it out!

Results of the 2009 Help & Manual user survey

Thu, 26 May 2009 09:28:12 +0100

We are happy to be able to announce the results of the 2009 Help & Manual User survey conducted from May 18 to May 25, 2009. We received 592 responses (555 full responses, 37 responses with some question omitted). We sent survey invitations to all registered users with recent licenses for Help & Manual version 5.

Maintenance release Help & Manual 5.11 build 590

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:28:12 +0100

This is a maintenance update for Help & Manual 5 which fixes two important problems found in the recent 5.1 release.

This update implements improved character and word spacing in PDF output and corrects duplicate entries in the configuration section of help projects, that might have been saved by accident with an earlier version of Help & Manual 5.

Maintenance release Help & Manual 5.11

Sat, 26 Jan 2009 15:28:12 +0100

EC Software announces the immediate availability of Help & Manual version 5.11!

This update implements minor changes and features, which were found and requested in the last couple of weeks and did not make it into the 5.1 release.

Dvora Elisheva reviews Help & Manual

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:28:12 +0100

It looks to me like the developers of Help & Manual have looked at the best liked features in other Help programs and said, "Let's take the best of them all and combine them."

Read the full review here (Initial Impressions) and here (More thoughts).

Help & Manual 5.1 released

Sat, 21 Dec 2008 15:28:12 +0100

EC Software announces the immediate availability of Help & Manual version 5.1!

The most important new feature of this new version is the integrated support for version control and the new EPUB output format.

Recent changes:
Forum link

Help & Manual 5.0.6 available!

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:28:12 +0100

EC Software announces the release of Help & Manual 5.0.6.

This is a maintenance update with minor bug fixes. We recommed this update for all 5.x users.

Recent changes:
Forum link

New: Premium Pack for Help & Manual 5 released!

Fri, 3 Oct 2008 16:50:28 +0200

The new Help & Manual 5 Premium Pack contains 14 professionally-designed "skins" with which you can transform the appearance of your HTML-based output with a single click.

You just select one of the skins in the Publish dialog and click OK to publish, that's all there is to it. The templates in the skins are merged with your project to give you tabbed navigation, non-scrolling headers and a stylish design, as in these examples below.

Learn more about the Premium Pack
View an online Flash demo
Purchase the Premium Pack (requires Help & Manual)

Help & Manual 5.0.5 released!

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:11:18 +0200

EC Software announces the availability of Help & Manual 5.0.5.

This is a maintenance update with lots of improvements and a couple of minor bug fixes. We recommed this update for all 5.x users.

Recent changes:
Forum link

Help & Manual 5.0.4 Update

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:37:36 +0200

EC Software announces the availability of Help & Manual 5.0.4.

This is a maintenance update that introduces several minor improvements. This update is recommended for all 5.x users.

Recent changes:
Forum link

Help & Manual 5 wins SIA Best Overall Utility Award

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:42:39 +0200

EC Software announces that its flagship product Help & Manual 5 has just won the Shareware Industry Award 2008 in the category Best Overall Utility.

This follows on the consecutive 2004 and 2005 wins in the Best Vertical Market Tool category for the product's predecessor, Help & Manual 4.

The award was presented at the Software Industry Conference in Boston on July 19.

Runners-up were Registry First Aid from Rose City Software, WinRAR from win.rar GmbH and WinZip from WinZip International. The Software Industry Awards are chosen by a jury of several thousand shareware authors, journalists, reviewers and representatives of companies that develop, package, sell or distribute shareware products in 87 countries worldwide.

Help & Manual 5.0.3 Update

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:34:13 +0200

EC Software announces the availability of Help & Manual 5.0.3.

This is a maintenance update that fixes one critical bug that caused problems when deleting and renaming topics in a newly created help project. This update is recommended for all 5.x users!

Recent changes:
Forum link

Help & Manual 5.0.2 Maintenance Update

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 12:32:29 +0200

We just released an updated build of Help & Manual 5 which is available from our download page. The most important changes concern the overal speed of Help & Manual 5, especially when working with large projects and even more so if you use the compressed XML format (.hmxz). This update also addresses all currently known issues.

We recommend this update to all 5.x users!
Recent changes:
Forum link

Help & Manual 5 released!

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 00:54:02 +0200

Pure XML, true single-source, concurrent multi-user editing. Just when you thought Help & Manual couldn't get any better, we have a surprise for you that will change the way you think about writing and managing technical documentation: Help & Manual Version 5 is not just an improvement on the current version, it is going to redefine single-source authoring.

Information for version 4 users:

You will need new license codes for version 5 - you cannot upgrade with
your version 4 license codes. If you purchased version 4 after 1
December 2007 you should receive free upgrade codes within the next few
days. Otherwise you will need to purchase an upgrade here:

http://www.ec-software.com/order.html?promotion=upgrade

Help & Manual 5 does not "upgrade" version 4. When you install Help & Manual 5 you must install it in a separate directory of its own and you
can leave version 4 installed so that you can use both versions on the
same machine -- you can even run them at the same time. We also
recommend this as you may want to have access to both versions while you
are making the transition.

Help & Manual 4.51 Build 1380 - Maintenance Update

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 20:51:46 +0200

This update is recommended for all users of Help & Manual version 4.x and includes three minor fixes.

The "lock treeview" command disabled creating links by drag and drop as well.
Multiple spaces were exported as alternating spaces and non-breaking spaces, but starting with the wrong character
In some rare cases, an automatic line break has turned off the current text format while writing

Help & Manual Print Manual Designer available as a separate download!

Mon, 3 Mar 2008 16:51:01 +0200

Help & Manual 4 comes with an integrated visual designer for print and PDF templates used in combination with help projects.

To make translations of help projects easier and and complete the translation roundtrip, the Print Manual Designer is now available as a stand-alone application as well. This separate setup is aimed on external translators who do not have Help & Manual installed.

The application is a free download, no license is required.

Download link:
http://www.ec-software.com/downloads.html

Help & Manual 4.5 Build 1344 - Maintenance Update

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:06:37 +0200

A minor maintenance update is available for Help & Manual 4.50. We have fixed a few small annoyances and bugs with this update.

XML export: changes to a-keyword tags and comments.
HTML export: changes to table width tags and text with colored background
Batch export with external variable sets: the TITLE variable was not overloaded in one particular situation
Webhelp export: image names of custom TOC icons were not automatically lowercase, that could have led to broken image references in the Webhelp TOC
Project synchronization: new synchronization option to help synchronize older help projects

Help & Manual wins ComponentSource Awards

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:26:30 +0200

ComponentSource®, reseller of EC Software products and the world's largest marketplace and community for reusable software components, today announced the launch of its new annual Awards program. At the launch ComponentSource announced the winners of the second annual awards for 2007 for both leading publishers and also their individual products.

Help & Manual and EC Software have been honored with the ComponentSource Bestselling Product Award and the ComponentSource Bestselling Publisher Award for 2007.

HHReg Version 1.2 available in English and German

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:24:30 +0200

HHReg, our popular free HTML Help registration utility has been updated to version 1.2 and now comes with a dual-language binary that contains English and German. HHReg is designed for end users and security is a critical issue! For this reason, HHReg detects the system language and automatically switches the user interface language.

EC Software Help Suite 1.8 released

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 11:24:30 +0200

EC Software Help Suite (EHS) has been updated and now includes packages for Delphi 2007 as well. EHS is a component suite for Borland Delphi that builds a bridge to HTML Help (.chm files) for older Delphi versions and add-ons for context sensitive What's This? help.

Help & Manual 4.5 released

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 12:33:22 +0200

We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.5.0!

This update is recommended for all users of Help & Manual version 4.x and introduces a couple of new features as well as a fix for a cross-browser scripting vulnerability issue in Browser-based Help. See link for details.

Impict adds XML export & import for image translation
Cross-browser scripting vulnerability in Browser-based Help
Creating topics with Drag & Drop
Inserting special characters
Miscellaneous fixes and enhancements

Updated online demos

Tue, 4 Dec 2007 14:42:44 +0200

The demo page features two new online demos with video and sound.

Simple-Talk reviews Help & Manual

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:24:51 +0200

In this article, we will review one particular HAT, Help & Manual, but we'll try to explain a bit about Help Authoring in general too, for the developer who is also required to get involved with the production of application help.

For the end user, it doesn't matter how well an application has been written if the help and documentation is poor.

In the hothouse, geeky culture of an IT development team, the way an application works must seem obvious. In the real world outside it often isn't, but well-crafted help and documentation can ease the cultural gap remarkably well.

The Technical Author is generally responsible for the Help Text, the printed manual, the 'white papers' and the material on the website. It is a daunting task. Increasingly, the work has to be sent to a bureau for translation into other languages; and the content has to survive translation into written languages that go from right-to-left, or vertically, as well as left-to-right. There may still be a demand for the production of a printed manual or PDF file too.

To make the task possible, technical content must have a single source that can cater for all these demands. This is where a HAT (Help Authoring Tool) comes in, and any technical author who works with Windows applications will be familiar with HAT software.

EC Software nominated for Constantinus International Award

Tue, 5 Jun 2007 10:13:32 +0200

UBIT - the Austrian National Professional Organisation for Management Consultancy and Information Technology has created the CONSTANTINUS award to promote excellence in consulting and IT-services.

EC Software has been nominated for the Constantinus award with its consulting project DIALOG Infosystem in cooperation with Jaeger & Schmitter Dialog, Germany.

The DIALOG Infosystem is a web-based call center information system based on Help & Manual. Since the introduction in 2005, Help & Manual and the web-based information system has become the central source of information and knowledge for JS Dialog, used by 700 employees and 70 authors in 4 different locations across Germany and Italy.

Out of 138 submissions, the project has been nominated in the category Constantinus International. We are looking forward to the award ceremony, which will take place in Salzburg/Austria on June 21st, 2007.

Links: (in German)
Constantinus Award website
Jaeger & Schmitter Dialog website

Jimco Software and Books reviews Help & Manual

Mon, 14 May 2007 14:36:46 +0200

Jim Cheshire of Jimco Software and Books writes about Help & Manual: It's not often that a product comes along that is so impressive that it almost seems too good to be true. In fact, I think I can count all such products I own on one hand. After spending a few weeks with Help & Manual 4.3, I can truly say that it has earned a spot as one of those products that seems too good to be true.

EC Software announces upcoming Help & Manual release 4.31

Mon, 14 May 2007 14:33:07 +0200

We are currently testing version 4.31 of Help & Manual, a minor but important update. The key features in the update will be improved PDF font embedding, page break handling in table cells and more HTML Help output options. Version 4.31 is due to release by the end of May 2007. If you are interested in testing the new version, please drop us an email.

Alessandro Carichini reviews Help & Manual 4.3

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:10:12 +0200

Alessandro Carichini for Programmazione.it, an Italian online magazine, reviews Help & Manual.

"If we compare it to products like RoboHelp, then the price of 459 dollars is rather competitive, but when compared with open source software, the picture changes. However, we are talking about a high-level product that covers all the documentation needs of a company."

Click on the link below to read the full article (in Italian language).

Charles Akin reviews Help & Manual 4.3

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:21:20 +0200

At $459.00 this product is a bargain. I's a fraction of the price of RoboHelp® and in my opinion it does the work just as well as RoboHelp®. Give the trial version a test drive and see if you don't agree.

Help & Manual version 4.3 released

Thu, 1 Mar 2007 17:45:11 +0200

We are glad to announce the release of Help & Manual 4.3! This update includes many improvements frequently requested by our user.

New directory structure for Samples and Templates
Improvements in the Impict screenshot editor with a new Export As function, drag & drop support and better color reduction for GIF images
Three-frame mode for Browser-based Help: you can now automatically create a 3-frame layout in Browser-based Help for better integration in your own website.
New navigation options for Browser-based Help: single-click navigation and automatically expanding table of contents
PDF export can embed files in the PDF
Syntax highlighter for C#
New variables for HTML templates, for better search-engine optimization
Translation: configuration file for editing H&M XML with SDL Trados

Software localization and help file translation with Sisulizer

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:06:09 +0200

Sisulizer just released a new feature in their localization tool: Localization of compiled HTML Help files (.chm).

Sisulizer Enterprise imports all translatable content directly from a .chm file. Text is automatically segmented into paragraphs for easy translation. You translate the text either in a WYSIWYG editor, or in a grid with separate columns for the source, and target language. HTML tags are retained in the translatable text.

Translations are saved in a so-called translation memory, a built-in database that remembers phrases that have been translated already. When you update your help file, Sisulizer's rescan function will detect the changes and attempt to automatically pre-translate unchanged content. Comfortable filters such as filters for untranslated text, changed or new paragraphs, help you to quickly update the translation as well.

Try the 30-days evaluation version from this link: www.sisulizer.com/downloads.shtml

Special offer for Help & Manual users:
Until end of February, 2007 Sisulizer Enterprise is available for EUR 999 excluding VAT. Help & Manual customers are eligible for an extra discount of 100 EUR. Please contact Sisulizer support for details on the discount.

About Sisulizer:
Sisulizer is a new software localization and translation tool, created by Sisulizer Ltd, Finland.