Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual on January 22, 2021
We are glad to announce the release of Help+Manual 8.3. If you are using version 8 already, this update is included in your maintenance plan. Just download the setup and run it to update your current installation.
This update significantly improves handling of Asian fonts. If you do not translate your documentation into Asian languages, you might never notice. Asian fonts have dual font names in Windows: their native name and an English equivalent. For instance, your Windows may support the font Microsoft YaHei, which is known to be a Chinese font. On a Chinese Windows, however, there is no Microsoft YaHei anywhere, you have 微软雅黑 instead, which means the same, just in Chinese. As long as the project stays on an English computer (or Chinese, for that matter), everything is fine. Problems may arise when the project is being edited on one PC and published on another, because despite it’s the very same font, the name strings don’t match. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, HelpXplain on December 12, 2020
We have updated the eWriter viewer application to version 2.5.0. The eWriter output format is supported by Help+Manual as well as HelpXplain.
Version 2.5 of the viewer does not have any functional changes, but fixes a problem with a Windows 10 system-wide option, that is rarely active but could be active on your end user’s computers. This option is in Region Settings and is called
Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide languages support
If this option was activate on a Windows 10 computer, the eWriter viewer did not work correctly. Content was incorrectly formatted and images were mostly missing. Viewer version 2.5 fixes this problem.
The update is available for download from our website (link after the picture) and soon in the Windows 10 store. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, HelpXplain on November 25, 2020
We are pleased to announce our Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers for this year: 30% discount on any of our products between Friday November 27th and Monday November 30th.
This promotion applies to:
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, Software Updates on October 17, 2020
We are glad to announce the release of Help+Manual 8.2.1. If you are using version 8 already, this update is included in your maintenance plan. Just download the setup and run it to update your current installation.
Help+Manual natively supports the WEBP image format. You can use WEBP as regular images or toggle images. When creating Webhelp, WEBP images are exported native. For all other output formats, Help+Manual converts WEBP to 32-bit PNG images, to ensure compatibility. Please be aware that WEBP images are yet not supported by all web browsers. If you use the WEBP format, these pictures might not be visible in Webhelp in older browsers. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Alexander Halser in Help+Manual, Software Updates on September 3, 2020
We are glad to announce the release of Help+Manual 8.2. If you are using version 8 already, this is update is included in your maintenance plan. Just download the setup and run it to update your current installation.
This update focuses on DeepL machine translation, PDF output and proxy servers for floating licenses. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by tim green in Documentation Authoring, Help+Manual, HelpXplain, Technical Writing, Training on June 19, 2020
Good news for all our US customers: The API license needed to use the DeepL machine translation plugin in Help+Manual and HelpXplain is now also available in the USA for just $5.49 per month.
The license is referred to as DeepL Pro. Here is the DeepL announcement:
DeepL posting on the new license
You can order the new DeepL Pro license on this page:
Order page for the new license
In addition to the monthly fee there is also a charge for translation volume. However, the amounts here are so generous that it would be difficult to exceed $10 per month in total.
Posted by Alexander Halser in Software Updates on May 24, 2020
We are glad to announce the release of Help+Manual 8.1. If you are using version 8 already, this is update is included in your maintenance plan. Just download the setup and run it to update your current installation.
The focus for this update was on speed issues and on floating licenses.
Did you ever experience a delay when taking a screenshot with Help+Manual? The delay occurred after the screenshot had been taken and before the save dialog appeared. If yes, this is an important update for you!
When taking a screenshot, Help+Manual prompts you to save the screenshot as picture file and suggests a file name, something like clip0019.png. To make sure this suggested file name is unique and not already used by another image, Help+Manual has to test whether such a file exists anywhere in the project search path. This function was not fast enough and that became even more obvious during the covid19 pandemic, where many users were working from home offices, connected via VPN. The connection lag multiplied those delays.
What’s new is, that the save dialog for screenshots should come up 10 to 50 times faster than before – depending on the folder structure of your help project.
This is important news for admins: the Floating License Manager has been updated with a password/PIN code function. This is an additional security layer, which can be applied to a pool of floating licenses by the administrator. When a password/PIN code is set in place, Help+Manual will prompt the user to enter the password/PIN code. This code is stored locally, so that the end user is not required to enter it every time.
Admins can set or change the password/PIN code to effectively exclude users who are no longer authorized to use a license from the floating license pool.
Help+Manual 8.1.0 is available from our download page:
Posted by Alexander Halser in Software Updates on April 21, 2020
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we’ve released a maintenance update for Help+Manual 8. If you are using version 8 already, this is update is included in your maintenance plan. Just download the setup and run it to update your current installation.
The new link lists in version 8 are a highly appreciated feature by most users and we quickly received suggestions how to improve them further. While we are still collection user suggestions for this new object, one of these has been implemented with the 8.0.3 update: an inline option to publish a list of links as comma-separated text, instead of a classic list.
The View tab has a button to start a new tool, that sets, changes or removes file associations in Windows. A file association tells Windows which program to start when you double click, for instance, a file with the extension .HMXZ. These file associations are automatically set by the installer. For admins who administer floating licenses, however, this can be a big help.
If you create PDF manuals with numbered outlines (outlines are the interactive TOC in a PDF file), the outline numbering was not reflected by the links that point to those topics. The PDF Layout configuration setting now features a configuration option whether to apply numberings to links as well or not:
Help+Manual 8.0.3 is available from our download page:
Posted by Alexander Halser in Skins, Software Updates, Translation on March 21, 2020
This is an important maintenance update, strongly recommended for all users of version 8!
Version 8.0.2 fixes a bug related to topic-status changes that can cause data loss: if the topic status was changed for multiple topics at once, those topics that have been edited before (and were yet not saved) lost their content.
This bug also triggered a problem with the table of contents, a warning appeared that the table of contents could not be stored.
Please, download and install v8.0.2 over your existing installation of Help+Manual 8.
Help+Manual 8.0.2 is available from our download page:
Posted by Alexander Halser in User Community on March 15, 2020
Dear EC Software Clients and Help+Manual Users,
In light of the global spread of Covid-19, we have been monitoring the situation for some time and have taken precautionary steps to safeguard the well-being of our team members and their families while simultaneously ensuring business continuity.
We would like to inform you of what we have done and will do to minimize any disruption for our and your business:
We have closed our office until at least end of March and keep working from home. All of the team members are well and healthy and none of us has been traveling to at-risk countries recently. We feel confident that over the next weeks and months, there should be no degradation of our ability to support you.
Due to our office being closed, telephone calls for sales and support usually cannot be answered. Please contact us by email, the online contact form, or post in the Help+Manual user forum, if you have questions or need software support. Our generic support address support@ec-software.com is regularly monitored and usually answered within a business day.
We greatly appreciate your understanding and cooperation throughout this entire situation and will continue to keep you informed of any significant changes that may impact our business.
Sincerely,
EC Software Executive Team