There is no simple answer to this question. Each of the formats currently supported by Help+Manual (eight including printed manuals) has its advantages and disadvantages. For detailed information see Help Formats in the Reference section.

Help+Manual creates 100% standards-conform help files. How published help files are integrated with Windows applications depends on the development tool used for creating the application.  You can download a collection of free tutorials for programmers from our website describing how to integrate HTML Help with number of leading programming tools:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/support_tutorials.html

WebHelp can be integrated with your application with normal URLs. The syntax is explained in Application links to WebHelp, along with examples.

A free Microsoft help compiler is needed to generate HTML help CHM files. The HTML Help Workshop compiler package can be freely downloaded from the Microsoft website.

However, since the compiler is quite hard to find on the Microsoft site and the location sometimes changes we provide a link to the correct version on our website:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads_mscomp.html

Visual Studio Help 2008 compiler:
The Visual Studio Help 2008 compiler for the HXS format is part of the Visual Studio Help Integration Kit (VSIK) which can be downloaded from the Microsoft MSDN website. (Visual Studio Help 2010 does not require a compiler.) However, it is not  a standalone compiler, it can only be used in combination with the Visual Studio .NET programming package. You don't need it if you don't have this package. This format is only used for documenting Visual Studio .NET components. It is not used for creating normal help for applications and you will not need it unless you are a Visual Studio .NET programmer.