Author-it releases update for version 5.0

An update for Author-it 5.0 is now available (Build 5.0.11.625).This update resolves a number of known issues, including significant improvements to performance for JET databases and enhanced table functionality.

Which vendor wins the battle of the Help Authoring Tools?

With the recent releases of new Help Authoring Tool versions for RoboHelp, AuthorIT and Flare, plus the release of Quadralay's ePublisher 9.3, does this affect which Help Authoring Tool you should purchase?

What I find interesting is the different ways in which the tool vendors perceive the issue of creating user assistance. If you want to create great online Help, with paper being a secondary consideration, you will probably prefer RoboHelp or Flare. If you have a team of people writing, you will probably prefer AuthorIT or ePublisher. If you need to translate the content, then all four of these tools have strengths in their different ways. If you want to generate XML, then Flare, ePublisher or AuthorIT.

The best approach is probably to create a statement of requirements for your situation and then use this as a benchmark when considering each tool. Here are a few factors to consider:

The need to localise content.
How many writers will be involved.
Whether you are creating new content or re-using existing content.
If you need single or multimedia output.
Your view of users and the feedback they might provide.
How much content you might be able to re-use.

AuthorIT Version 5

At last week's Online Help Conference Europe 2007, AuthorIT's Austrian distributors demonstrated AuthorIT version 5 and AuthorIT Xtend. These were officially released this week.

Verison 5 has a new UI (similar to the latest versions of Word and Outlook) and additional capabilities for controlling the published outputs.

They also demonstrated Xtend, which suggests reusable content while you type. If someone has already created the content you're writing about, then it will flag this up. It's a useful feature if you have a team of authors contributing content, a big library of content, or translated topic that you want to reuse. It's not cheap, however.

Author-it are running a series of free 2 hour Webinars on version 5 and Xtend:

Wednesday 3rd October
Thursday 11th October
Monday 8th October
Monday 22nd October
Tuesday 2nd October
Thursday 11th October

AuthorIT Live!

Ray Duncan from AuthorIT was in town this week, and I had an excellent chat with him yesterday afternoon. It was a great opportunity to throw out some suggestions for their product, and to get an update on what's due out in the near future.

AuthorIT Live!, which is due out very soon, sounds really exciting. It should offer a great environment for collaborative authoring - a flexible environment for professional technical authors and a controlled environment for engineers; access to the system wherever there's a PC with broadband access; plus all the other existing AuthorIT capabilities.

New AuthorIT Training courses

We've added two new AuthorIT training courses this week. These are self-paced courses that allow you to master AuthorIT at your own pace. One course is AuthorIT training for users, the other is AuthorIT training for Administrators.