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Make Your Own Help File
Author: Mike de Sousa, 2BrightSparks Pte
Ltd.
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PDF version [opens
new window]
Help Files are often
thought of as only relating to software
products, however the help file is
a far more flexible and useful publication
developed by thousands of individuals,
companies, and organizations who wish
to provide documentation, manuals,
and guidance
about their products and services.
We take a look at the benefits to your
audience of making Help
Files, and show how InfoHesiveEP is ideally
suited to the task.
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What is a Help File?
A digital Help File provides information,
explanations, and guidance about how to best
take advantage
of a product or service. The Help File is
either downloadable via an intranet or website,
or is presented as a digital file on CD or
DVD which
is shipped
with the product.
The days of the printed manual are numbered.
More and more companies are switching to digital
documentation, not only to support software
but for general manufactured products and
services. Producing digital Help Files not
only reduces design and manufacturing costs
significantly
as compared
with traditional printed manuals, it is
also far better for the environment.
Help files provide topic-oriented,
procedural and reference information that
assists the user in their use of products
and services. Let's say for example you buy
a new mobile phone. The manufacturer will likely
provide a printed quick start guide, but the
detailed documentation can be delivered via
the manufacturer's website as a file that can
be downloaded. This has great advantages for
both the customer and producer which we'll
now review.
The Advantages of using Help Files
Good communications between your organization
and users is essential to its growth. Providing
up to date help files on your website not only
encourages
your audience to more fully explore your products
and services, they also act as "soft
marketing" materials that assure potential
customers of the quality of your after sales
and membership support.
Some of the advantages of using digital
help files over printed manuals and support
documentation follow:
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Digital Help Files are
ideally suited to providing assistance
as compared with printed manuals as they
can be easily searched, annotated, and
copied for multiple users.
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Publishing help files supports your
user community. This
has a positive impact on the way
your audience view your organization.
Providing professional high quality support
resources shows you care about your customers/clients/audience/
community.
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Providing Help Files for your products
and/or service decreases the demands
on your support staff allowing you to
allocate more resources to areas like
R&D.
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Printed support materials require
postal distribution which is both expensive
and has a negative environmental impact.
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Digital Help Files can be produced
and distributed by an individual. In
contrast, print manuals require many
people including authors, packaging designers,
and distributors.
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Digital Help Files are easily distributed
via email, intranet, and websites as
compared with printed
support materials that require postal
distribution.
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Printed support materials are more
expensive to distribute and have a negative
environmental impact.
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Digital Help Files are easily updated
ensuring customers have the very latest
advice about your product or service.
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An archive of digital Help Files can
be provided on the producer's web site
that relates to previous versions or
models of your products. Digital archives
are easy to produce and are not a drain
on shelf
space as printed materials are.
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Digital Files are easily updated ensuring
customers have the very latest advice.
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Publish Help Files and More
InfoHesiveEP is designed to deliver high quality
presentational help files. While the program
does not deliver all the functionality of some
speciailst software like Adobe's
RoboHelp and ECSoftware's
Help and Manual, it is much easier
to use, and costs a great deal less for a license
(around a tenth of the price).
InfoHesiveEP allows
you to not only develop your publications in
a familiar word processor-like
environment, the program exports to a wide
range of formats
in addition to .CHM including HTML (required
by DTP), PDF, .Mobi, ePub
and
more.
Not only will you be able to make Windows
Help Files, you'll also be able to develop
materials that can be read across platforms
and operating systems (PC, Mac, iPhone, Kindle,
the Sony
eReader etc.).
If you have an existing .CHM Windows Help
File you even import that into InfoHesiveEP.
Make
sure the layout and content is appropriately
edited,
then export to the file type you wish.
InfoHesiveEP also builds eBooks, PDFs,
digital brochures and other digital promotional
materials.
InfoHesiveEP
is not only a software tool that allows
you to deliver great help files for your users,
it
provides
a
rich feature-set that gives you an easy path
to deliver Digital Help Files for your readership.
Download
InfoHesiveEP for
a test drive today...
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