How to use

The resources listed on this site are divided into four main groups:

• Do you want a better understanding of technical documentation, its methodologies and processes? You can find lists of knowledge articles in “Collections.”
• Are you looking to narrow down a set of candidate tools that fit your list of requirements? You can find a directory of these in “Tools“.
• Would you like to see how others have implemented their help sites, perhaps for an understanding of good design principles, or just for inspiration? You can find examples of beautiful documentation in “Help sites.”
• Are you looking for authoritative blogs to follow? “Blogs” contains a list of websites by well-known technical authors.

Regarding tools

The products under “/Tools” are organized according to a system of filters. We’ve listed some answers to popular questions below. If you find a mistake (e.g., dead link or inaccurate information) please let us know.

Some cloud-based tools list “web browser” as a platform, but then web browsers run on all OS platforms. So why aren’t you listing these platforms as well?

SaaS documentation tools (i.e., apps hosted somewhere on the internet that offer authoring and editing capabilities solely in a web browser) render discussions of OS moot – at least for end users. OS becomes relevant for tools either running natively on a given operating system, or for cloud-based tools that you must install locally in a client-server configuration (in which case “web browser” is listed in addition to one or more OS platforms hosting the software).

For example, the server of component content management system Astoria (https://tools.doctoolhub.com/tool/Astoria) can be installed on Mac or Windows, but you use a browser to work with content. So Mac and Windows are listed as platforms, in addition to web browsers.

Another example is ClickHelp (https://tools.doctoolhub.com/tool/ClickHelp), a SaaS-based help authoring tool (HAT). As it’s a SaaS and purely in the cloud, “web browser” is listed as the only platform.

Tool X has a few more features than you list here.

That’s probably correct – it wouldn’t be feasible to provide an exhaustive list of features for each tool, but rather the ones most relevant for techcom. However if you think that a critical feature should be a listed, then drop us a line.

I did a search on the website but it only pulled up knowledge articles. What about tools?

The product listing on the “Tools” page uses its own search engine (Algolia search).

I know that tool X supports more formats than listed. What about PowerPoint and JPEG?

We focus on file formats in which technical documentation is typically published, such as markup or print formats.

What about this tool that’s not even listed on your site? Tons of people use it

Great! Just send us the product’s name and some details.

How do I get a list of all tools in the index?

Click on “/Tools” in the menu, then type an asterisk * in the search bar.