I’m looking for some tool that can be used to create .chm (or something else that works with .NET) help files for my .NET application. I realize that Microsoft offers a free product that works perfectly fine, but here is the caveat: I work for a contractor that gets it’s money from the gov’t. As you can imagine, we have certain processes in place that are simply there to waste time and money. One of these is our process for approving “Free and/or Open Source Software.” Given that this microsoft tool is free, program management wants nothing to do with it..they’d much rather find one that they can buy and get a license for to remove any ambiguity about our legal rights to use it. So yes, even though there is a perfectly good, free tool available, to satisfy management who doesn’t want to deal with stupid, expensive, time consuming processes, I’m looking for something (that is probably less capable) that costs us money and will accomplish the same/similar thing.
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I use Help & Manual which is extremely capable. It provides multiple outputs – chm, pdf, hlp and others. It is easy to use; can take very large help sources; and supports multiple languages and external translators; and can be used to generate application help (tool tips, etc.) I have no connection with the product or company, except as a very satisfied user. I do believe that its capabilities far outstrip Microsoft’s free tool, though it is some years since I used the MS tool.