![]() Its interface features a Windows ribbon-like look that may look a little dated but presents users with a familiar environment that’s easy to pick up. However, unlike other products with this capability, HelpNDoc is actually easy and intuitive to use. HelpNDoc is another documentation software product that lets users create documents in many formats from a single source. It’s a good choice for teams who collaborate closely and need to exchange knowledge frequently. Nevertheless, Confluence’s knowledge sharing and collaboration features make this software a top product in the documentation space. However, if you’re creating customer-facing documentation and need it to be on-brand, it might be a little more difficult to customize. This isn’t a problem if you’re using Confluence for internal purposes, as there isn’t much need for branding in that case. ![]() With three pricing tiers, you can find the version that best suits your business and budget.Something that could be considered a drawback is that Confluence lacks some of the customization features that other products on this list include. It also integrates with major third-party solutions including Intercom, Google Analytics, and Disqus. Collaboration is built into the tool with multiple version control, article commenting, auto-save, code blocks and Markdown support. Take your time when choosing a tool, because it underpins the success of your customer service.Ĭonsidering a cloud-based option? Document360 offers a great solution for creating, managing and publishing help documentation software. Whatever you decide on, make sure it’s the best solution for your ongoing business needs, budget and the team working on it. Most vendors will offer a free trial so you can understand if their tool suits your organisation. For a one-off, annual or monthly fee, you know what features and support are available. Proprietary and cloud tools are more suited to organisations with a specific budget because there are clear costs. However, it needs a lot more work to get up-and-running compared to proprietary and cloud tools. It’s true that open source offers the most flexibility when it comes to customisations and integrations. These are usually organisations with an expert team and who require highly specific features. It’s also more user-friendly, with training or documentation aimed towards multiple knowledge levels.įor some companies, open source is the perfect solution. Usually, the support provided is at the vendor’s discretion, but it’s more than what’s provided with open source. Proprietary and cloud tools don’t necessarily come with full support either (although ones like Document360 do!). Therefore, your IT team (and the users of your help authoring tool) will need enough expertise to be self-sufficient. Sandcastle, for example, has a section where you can report issues or ask questions from the community. There is little-to-no support available, save a few online forums. To gain full functionality, you may need to combine several solutions.īy now, you’ve probably realised that you’re on your own with open source software. Microsoft’s HTML Help Workshop, for example, will only turn HTML pages into a compiled help (.chm) format. Plus, features can be limited with open source software. This is useful when your company requires a lot of integrations (with CRM or live chat software, for instance) or complex customisations.īut this can be overkill if you can get by with the features and integrations of cloud and proprietary tools. It provides the foundations to a help authoring tool, so your team can build in any integrations or features that your business needs. This needs specialist technical knowledge and proper documentation of any changes to the original source code.Ī major perk to using open source help authoring tools is the freedom to completely customise it. Additionally, any upgrades need to consider the previous work done to customise your open source tool. However, with open source tools, all responsibility for updating and responding to end-user feedback falls on you. Meanwhile, proprietary updates can be done for an additional fee. Cloud-based help authoring software will often update automatically. If you expect to regularly upgrade and update your help authoring tool (perhaps in response to a changing operating system or end-user feedback) then open source can be pricey.
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