A Help Authoring Tool or HAT is a software program used by

technical writer A technical writer is a professional information communicator whose task is to transfer information between two or more parties, through any medium that best facilitates the transfer and comprehension of the information. Technical writers researc ...

s to create

online help Online help is topic-oriented, procedural or reference information delivered through computer software. It is a form of user assistance. The purpose of most online help is to assist in using a software application, web application or operating sys ...

systems.

Functions

The basic functions of a Help Authoring Tool (HAT) can be divided into the following categories:

File input

HATs obtain their source text either by importing it from a file produced by another program, or by allowing the author to create the text within the tool by using an editor. File formats that can be imported vary from HAT to HAT. Acceptable file formats can include

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...

, OpenOffice Writer and

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other pla ...

, and compiled Help formats such as

Microsoft WinHelp Microsoft WinHelp is a proprietary format for online help files that can be displayed by the Microsoft Help browser ''winhelp.exe'' or ''winhlp32.exe''. The file format is based on Rich Text Format (RTF). It remained a popular Help platform fro ...

and

Microsoft Compressed HTML Help Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a Microsoft proprietary online help format, consisting of a collection of HTML pages, an index and other navigation tools. The files are compressed and deployed in a binary format with the extension .CHM, for Com ...

Help output

The output from a HAT can be either a compiled Help file in a format such as

WinHelp Microsoft WinHelp is a proprietary format for online help files that can be displayed by the Microsoft Help browser ''winhelp.exe'' or ''winhlp32.exe''. The file format is based on Rich Text Format (RTF). It remained a popular Help platform from ...

(*.HLP) or

Microsoft Compiled HTML Help Microsoft Compiled HTML Help is a Microsoft proprietary online help format, consisting of a collection of HTML pages, an index and other navigation tools. The files are compressed and deployed in a binary format with the extension .CHM, for Com ...

(*.CHM), or noncompiled file formats such as Adobe PDF,

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

or JavaHelp.

Auxiliary functions

Some HATs provide extra functions such as: * Automatic or assisted Index generation * Automatic

Table of Contents A table of contents, usually headed simply Contents and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list, usually found on a page before the start of a written work, of its chapter or section titles or brief descriptions with their commencing page numbe ...

Spelling checker In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic d ...

* Image editing * Image hotspot editing * Import and export of text in

files, for exchange with

computer-assisted translation Computer-aided translation (CAT), also referred to as computer-assisted translation or computer-aided human translation (CAHT), is the use of software to assist a human translator in the translation process. The translation is created by a huma ...

programs

Common Help Authoring Tools

Some common HATs include: * HelpNDoc *

Adobe RoboHelp Adobe RoboHelp is a help authoring tool (HAT) developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows. RoboHelp was created by Gen Kiyooka, and Blue Sky Software released version 1.0 in January 1992. Blue Sky Software was founded in 1990 and changed ...

* HelpSmith * Doc-To-Help *

MadCap Flare MadCap Software is an American computer software firm headquartered in San Diego, California that creates help authoring tools and solutions for technical writers and documentations teams. Several principal managers, software engineers, and suppo ...

Help & Manual Help & Manual is a Windows-based help authoring tool published by EC Software, a company based in Austria. Like many help authoring tools, Help & Manual allows the writer to create a single source text which it then converts to a number of ta ...

Sandcastle Sand art is the practice of modelling sand into an artistic form, such as sand brushing, sand sculpting, sand painting, or creating sand bottles. A sandcastle is a type of sand sculpture resembling a miniature building, often a castle. The dr ...

* AsciiDoc

Related software

Technical writers often use content management systems and

version control system In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...