Help Authoring Tools (HAT) are software applications designed to assist technical writers in creating, publishing, and maintaining help documentation for software. The resulting documentation is used in user guides, manuals, and help files. These tools aim to reduce the time and effort required to produce assistance materials for employees and end users. Technical writers use HATs to manage the entire documentation process, including writing, editing, and exporting documents for review by editors, administrators, and colleagues. Ultimately, HATs enable the digital publication of the documentation. Many of these tools support importing text from various file formats and document creation software. Some HATs without built-in build tools may need to integrate with build automation tools to display or utilize the documentation.
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