The Help Generator provides help authoring tools for creating chm help files, browser-based help, and printed user documentation. The modern, Office-style help editing environment is packed with features that ensure high productivity and quality results. Edit with a WYSIWYG (HTML) help editor using the modern Windows Fluent ribbon. Use the Help Generator software to create standard Windows help files, also called chm files or compiled html help files, and browser-based help for any Windows application. The Help Generator add-in creates a descriptive topic page for each form in your application that includes a title, a screenshot with an image map, and sections for all controls. Pages created by the add-in are automatically integrated with your application so you have instant F1 support for context-sensitive help.

After installation, you can either run the Help Capture tool to take screenshots or open the Help Editor tool to start creating documentation. The Help Editor provides all the basic options you’d expect to find in MS Office applications such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint 2010. The tabs located in the ribbon menu can be used to add images, tables, hyperlinks, and to format text to the desired layout. As you can see from the screenshot below, you can create complex topic pages with a title, screenshots, and individual sections to form a help menu for Windows-based software. The pages generated by the Help Generator are automatically added to the selected application, so you can not only create, but also integrate help menu documentation for specific software.

Similarly, the Help Capture tool acts as an additional complement to the Help Editor tool and can be used to instantly create screenshots for integration with help menu documentation. With Help Capture, you can customize the HTML output to select the specific information that is collected for documentation, add descriptive text to the finished sections, and automatically save and name the screenshots you capture.

The Help Generator can be downloaded as a standalone program (with a help editor and help capture tool) or alternate versions can be downloaded for development platforms such as Visual Studio.net, MS Access, and Visual Basic 6.0. Individual Help Generator add-ons and bundles cost $49 to $399 (depending on the version you want to purchase).