Author-It Reviews

Author-it is a mature component content management system. I've been using it now for 15 years. It is stable, and I rarely have any problems with it. It looks after all my content without me having to worry. I'm able to efficiently manage content, create content and generate it when I need it.

They have recently released "Magellan" a fully responsive HTML5 output that ticks all the boxes if you want a modern-looking responsive help system. It is easy to put together, and I found t relatively easy to style to my company's brand. It does require some CSS skills but not many.

I really liked the easy use of Author-It. You did not have to worry about how everything will look later on in the published PDF. Setting styles prior to writing the sections will ensure that everything is presented nicely in the exported PDF.

Although I liked that you did not have to worry about how the PDF will look once exported, occasionally it was hard to "fix" something afterward, as you would only know what the end product looks like once it was exported. It would sometimes take a couple of exports to get some numbering or a table right.

With Author-It we are solving our biggest problem within document control, which would be to track all of our changes and to be able to make changes across multiple manuals at the same time. We are able to share content and track this through the Author-It software.

Love it. I’ve loved it for years. Superb tools with forgivable compromises. We use the Cloud version for a globally distributed team. We have authors in the US, UK, Germany and India so far... I love the way you can throw yourself in as a team, be productive immediately, and tidy up using the tools as you evolve your solution. The nicest thing about implementing it this time around is how outstandingly positive my whole team have been about the tool and the experience.

Minor things that haven't been sorted out for years but make a huge impact on their target users, like hyperlinks in Word documents or not having table numbering without customization. These days we also want tagging and taxonomy but these are not explicitly supported and need workarounds. Final snag is no internal baseline feature; you can export the whole book as XML and re-import it later though. These little things that have a big effect and prevent more widespread adoption. Overall though, these compromises do not invalidate the huge benefits of having a global, Cloud-based, relational database of content that can be reused so easily and managed so effectively.

Be brave and throw yourself it. Author-it will catch you!

- globally distributed teams can start working as soon as you switch on the Cloud solution

As implementer and trainer, one my main job is to write and create User Manuals. The important aspect of the software is it allows to create manual templates, topics, chapters, store picture and TOI in a very easy and professional way. One of important feature is the ability to link the topics, chapters and pictures to different manuals instead of creating similar data repeatedly, this feature helped me save time and create manuals very fast. I strongly recommend Author-IT software if you wish to create manuals in a simple, faster and professional way.

Some time the response time is very slow which is very occasional.

I strongly recommend Author-IT software if you wish to create manuals in a simple, faster and professional way.

My organization has been using Author-it close for almost 8 years now, and we have had a great experience with the tool.

My favourite aspect of Author-it is how light it is. We can access the product from anywhere, and we require zero IT help in maintaining it. We also maintain all of our templates ourselves. The odd time we need support to lend a hand, they respond within minutes and are incredible helpful.

The only downside is that over the last few years, updates have slowed down. However, with Paul Trottier back in the fold, we have seen a HUGE improvement in the release cadence, inclusion of new features and overall experience.

A learning curve but their training is great. Best is the ability to reuse text. if you are writing a new document that is 80% like another product, your work is 80% done.

We output to MSWord and then make a PDF. We have to do the page breaks manually. The parts component is added in Word before making the PDF.

Great program

if you are writing a new document that is 80% like another product, your work is 80% done.

I like the control that I can place in Author-IT around the structure and formatting of documents. Too many times the documents created in document editing platforms have issues with external editors changing fonts and styles to their own desires rather than a business branded style and there is a large amount of re-work on standardising formatting.

The upgrades to Author-IT are centred around EU and US servers can client times. Typically this means I can be out of action for half a day when upgrades happen. It would be great to have an offline component or an AU cloud instance that is of less impact here.

It is a great tool for managing content. There are features in it that when set up correctly significantly reduce the time and effort to build and deliver content in a consistent approach.

The ability to reuse content and customize content for different books. You can write a piece of content but use a variable that populates the verbiage with a product name. Then multiple authors can use the content without having to rewrite or tweak.

The way the windows of the application work on the screen. The main screen opens to a book and from there you open a topic. You can't minimize the other screens. A multiple monitor implementation is essential. It is a real challenge to use remotely.

Allow for the learning curve, have a clear idea of what you want it to do so you can configure with those goals in mind.

Managing multiple authors (five) and ensuring content can be reused. The longer you use the application, the more content is available to be used going forward. You do not need to "reinvent the wheel" over and over.

no more searching for files or images, quick finds trough locate option

No more endless debates about why old recently updated content came back in other manuals dye to copy/paste.

Building and managing technical manuals. Nice ability to single source chapters, topics and images.

We are using the On Premises version.

We can organize our work inside of Author-it using release sates and internal comments.