New equation library item with built-in mathematical expression editor, project-wide character analyzer, and more in HelpNDoc 8.5

New equation library item with built-in mathematical expression editor, project-wide character analyzer, and more in HelpNDoc 8.5
Categories: news

HelpNDoc, the popular help authoring software, has just released its latest version, HelpNDoc 8.5, packed with several new features and improvements to help authors create even better documentation. Among the new additions are an Equation library item that allows mathematical expressions to be defined and reused throughout a project, a project analyzer that lists individual characters and their number of occurrences throughout the project, and an updated build actions panel that saves and restores properties group positions and column widths. The new version also includes improvements to the scripting engine, documentation generation, and user interface. Let's take a closer look at some of the most notable updates in HelpNDoc 8.5 but first if you haven't used HelpNDoc before or haven't updated yet, we encourage you to download the free personal edition to try out the software and experience these new features for yourself.

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How technical writers can include PHP code in their online documentation

How technical writers can include PHP code in their online documentation
Categories: articles

PHP is a powerful server-side scripting language that has been an essential tool for web development for decades. With its ability to dynamically generate content, enhance user experience, handle security restrictions, increase interactivity or collect user data, it is a great addition to online user documentation. Thanks to the HelpNDoc help authoring tool's powerful and versatile template system, these benefits are now easily achievable: let's explore how incorporating PHP into online user documentation can help to improve the user experience and provide better engagement and feedback. Whether you're a web developer, a technical writer, or someone looking to enhance their online documentation, this post will provide valuable insights and tips on how to use HelpNDoc to make the most of PHP in your online documentation.

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Streamline Your Documentation Generation Workflow with the New HTTP Request Build Action in HelpNDoc 8.4

Streamline Your Documentation Generation Workflow with the New HTTP Request Build Action in HelpNDoc 8.4
Categories: news

Help authors, technical writers, and documentation specialists, we have some exciting news for you! The latest release of HelpNDoc, the powerful and user-friendly help authoring tool, introduces several new features and bug fixes that will improve your documentation workflow and enhance your overall experience with the software. Whether you are looking to perform HTTP requests before or after the generation process, manage keywords more efficiently, or benefit from a more intuitive user interface, HelpNDoc 8.4 has something for everyone. In this article, we will highlight the most significant new features and improvements in this release and show you how they can help you create better documentation, faster and more efficiently.

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How to create a CHM help file: use a modern help authoring software instead of the outdated HTML Help Workshop

How to create a CHM help file: use a modern help authoring software instead of the outdated HTML Help Workshop
Categories: articles

CHM help files are used to provide online help and documentation for software applications, plugins or drivers, and are commonly distributed with Windows installers. Third-party programs like HelpNDoc are specialized help authoring software tools that can make it easier and faster to create a CHM help file. Using a third-party program to create a CHM help file can provide several benefits compared to using the built-in HTML Help Workshop program provided by Microsoft, as they offer a user-friendly graphical interface, powerful features, time-saving tools, and flexibility that can make it easier and more efficient to create a professional-looking CHM help file. In this article, we will discuss these benefits in more detail and provide an overview of the steps for creating a CHM help file using a help authoring tool. Whether you are new to creating help files or an experienced technical writer, these programs can provide valuable tools and resources to help you create high-quality help content for your users.

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Locate and update hyperlinks in bulk, filtered keywords and improved documentation generation speed in HelpNDoc 8.3

Locate and update hyperlinks in bulk, filtered keywords and improved documentation generation speed in HelpNDoc 8.3
Categories: news

We are glad to announce the release of HelpNDoc 8.3, a major update of the popular help authoring tool which can be downloaded completely free for personal use and evaluation purposes. This major update includes many new features and enhancements such as the ability to update or delete multiple hyperlinks at once from the project analyzer, an enhanced “find and replace” dialog with hyperlink searching capabilities, the ability to filter keywords to only display the ones associated with the current topic, a greatly improved documentation generation speed and much more… Read on to learn more and download your free version of HelpNDoc now.

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HelpNDoc 8.2: New pre-build actions, Run external programs, Improved auto-completion and more

HelpNDoc 8.2: New pre-build actions, Run external programs, Improved auto-completion and more
Categories: news

We are glad to announce the release of HelpNDoc 8.2, a major update of the popular help authoring tool which can be downloaded completely free for personal use and evaluation purposes. This major update includes many new features and enhancements such as pre-build actions, which are run before the documentation generation process; a new build action to run external programs; a redesigned auto-completion dialog to quickly create links to topics and anchors or insert library items; improved HTML generation with better SEO and much more…

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Why Use a Help Authoring Tool Instead of Microsoft Word to Produce High-Quality Documentation?

Why Use a Help Authoring Tool Instead of Microsoft Word to Produce High-Quality Documentation?
Categories: articles

When it comes to creating high-quality help files, user manuals, documentation websites, or eBooks, Microsoft Word is not the best tool for the job. In fact, it can be a real pain to use and the results are often far from satisfactory: managing multiple interconnected documents with Microsoft Word is very hard, error-prone, and time-consuming. A Help Authoring Tool (HAT), such as HelpNDoc, is much simpler, faster, and therefore cheaper to use. Plus, it can generate multiple output formats out of a single source.

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Run post-build actions when the documentation is generated and create topics from a template in HelpNDoc 8.1

Run post-build actions when the documentation is generated and create topics from a template in HelpNDoc 8.1
Categories: news

We are glad to announce the release of HelpNDoc 8.1, a major update of the popular help authoring tool which can be downloaded completely free for personal use and evaluation purposes. This major update includes many new features and enhancements such as the ability to define post-build actions which are run after the documentation generation process for each build; the ability to select a snippet as the default topics' content; an improved topic editor with the ability to display smaller library items; and much more... Read on to learn more and download your free version of HelpNDoc now.

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Encrypt and sign Word and PDF documents, use SVG images, and override styles for each documentation output in HelpNDoc 8.0

Encrypt and sign Word and PDF documents, use SVG images, and override styles for each documentation output in HelpNDoc 8.0
Categories: news

We are glad to announce the new major version of the popular HelpNDoc help authoring tool, which can be downloaded completely free for personal use and evaluation purposes. This major update includes a ton of new features and enhancements, such as a completely revised architecture as HelpNDoc is now a 64-bit application for improved speed and memory usage; It can now sign, encrypt and password-protect both Word and PDF documents; It supports scalable SVG graphic images in all documentation formats; It allows for styles to be overridden for each documentation output; and much, much more…

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