# Help Authoring Tools & Books

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-authoring-tools-books/459451
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 10, 2008, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-authoring-tools-books/459451 "2008-08-10T00:14:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2008, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-authoring-tools-books/459451/1 "2008-08-10T00:14:57Z")

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I’m facing spinal surgery later in the week and what I understand will be fairly long recovery. I’d like to try to learn to write HTML Help Files, after the pain dies down. And since I don’t know if I will be able to sit at the computer all that long, I’d like the Help Authoring tools to be free. I’d also like the names of a few _How to Write HTML Help Files_ books; I don’t expect the books to be free.

Thanks for any and all recommendations.

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### Author: ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-authoring-tools-books/459451/2 "2008-08-11T16:49:56Z")

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I use [Help Maker](http://www.softpedia.com/get/Authoring-tools/Help-e-book-creators/HelpMaker.shtml) to do the help files for the application I’m in charge of. It does give you the option of looking at the raw HTML if you’d like, but it’s mostly a GUI interface for a WYSIWYG type editor. Can’t help with any book recomendations.

Best of luck and well wishes on a speedy recovery!

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### Author: ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-authoring-tools-books/459451/3 "2008-08-11T19:09:48Z")

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Check Microsoft’s website; they used to give away the HTML Help Workshop for free. It’s not as much of a helper application as the larger (and pretty expensive) HATs (Help Authoring Tools) such as RoboHELP, Madcap, Doc-to-Help or ForeHelp (if those two even exist anymore, I’m not sure) - you’ll have to do a lot of the linking and building of table of contents and indexes manually instead of through wizards and such. That said, building help this way manually will give you a better idea of all the pieces parts and how they fit together, which is pretty valuable.

Sadly, I don’t have any offhand book recommendations.