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12 Examples of the Best Software for Creating Manuals

Jasper Dunn
Jasper Dunn
14 min read
Apr 28, 2023
a person typing on a laptop's keyboard

If you've ever had to write a user manual, you know how challenging it can be to create a document that's both informative and easy to follow. Luckily, there are a variety of software solutions available that can help streamline the process and ensure that your manual is top-notch. In this article, we'll explore some of the best software for creating user manuals, taking into account factors such as ease of use, collaboration features, and publishing options. Whether you're a solo technical writer or part of a team, you're sure to find a tool that fits your needs.

1. KnowledgeBase

KnowledgeBase is a knowledge base software you can use to create user manuals. It's affordable and super easy to set up. You can use it to create both external and internal knowledge bases and help centers. You can use it to create manuals and publish them in a self-service help center which is accessible day and night.

In there, you can create online manuals and product documentation using a handy text editor which lets you attach various media formats, such as images, GIFs, and videos.

The cool thing is when you integrate it with LiveChat, your customers can access guides and manuals right inside the chat window. That means your customers don't have to contact support and wait for a response.

At the same time, your your support agents, they can easily browse customer support knowledge base directly in the LiveChat Agent App.

Other features of KnowledgeBase include:

And if you're not sure about it yet, you can try it out for free for 14 days. Cool, right?

Offer 24/7 self-service

Knowledge base software for lightning-fast customer support and effortless self-service.

Trusted by 2,500+ companies

Free 14-day trial

2. ProProfs

ProProfs knowledge base is an intuitive tool that offers a range of features for creating interactive user manuals.

It provides an online editor to write, edit, and style your content, and allows you to import Word docs, Excel sheets, and presentations. With its review and approval system, publishing options, and reports, you can easily create and track your user manual's performance.

ProProfs allows you to create both public and private knowledge bases, from customer-facing user manuals to internal employee handbooks.

You can drag and drop content and categories, and control article status to keep your team up-to-date with your content's status. You can easily customize your knowledge base settings, such as changing the theme, adding a favicon, and updating the logo. ProProfs also provides integration with live chat and help desk software for a more unified support experience.

ProProfs integrates with popular ticketing and chat tools like Google Analytics, Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Desk. You can link your existing support software stack with your knowledge base for easy access to all your customer information. ProProfs’s pricing starts at $49/author/month, and the essential plan costs $60 per month.

Key Features of ProProfs Knowledge Base:

3. Helpjuice

Helpjuice is a user manual creator that offers easy-to-use software to create simple yet effective knowledge bases. The software has a simple editor panel that allows you to create multiple versions of the same article, making it easy to switch between different versions in the editor.

With Helpjuice, you can structure your content into categories and folders, making it easy for your users to navigate your knowledge base. You can set your articles to public, internal or private, so you can choose who can access your content.

Helpjuice supports dragging and dropping files into the article editor and copying and pasting from MS Word. You can also interlink your articles with ease from the editor.

The software also comes with intelligent analytics, so you can measure the impact of your articles in a specific time frame, see what users are searching for, measure what topics your audience is consuming, and analyze the productivity of your article authors.

Helpjuice integrates with popular software solutions including Slack, Google Chrome, and Zendesk.

Helpjuice’s Starter plan costs $120 per month, making it an affordable option for those looking for a user-friendly online knowledge base solution.

4. Document360

Document360 is an outstanding knowledge base software that allows you to create amazing user manuals. The software comes with advanced features like a state-of-the-art editor, category manager, and more to help you organize your content into six levels of categories and subcategories. You can use the drag-and-drop UI to rearrange categories easily. Document360 also provides you with a Markdown editor to help you focus on writing text-heavy documents or a WYSIWYG editor for those who prefer that functionality. You can add links, images, videos, callouts, code blocks, and more to your content.

Document360 has AI-powered and mobile-friendly search capabilities that help users find what they’re searching for quickly. Additionally, the software provides extensions with popular apps like Zendesk, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, Drift, and many others to enhance its functionality.

You can view the change history for any piece of content using Document360’s versioning tools, allowing you to roll back to a previous version. Document360’s advanced analytics help you track where your knowledge base traffic is coming from, what your visitors are searching for, and how they’re interacting with your content. You can also customize your knowledge base to your liking using custom CSS.

Document360 integrates with many popular apps such as Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, and Google Analytics. You can use the software to build an impressive user manual for your customers and internal users. Document360’s startup plan costs $49 per project per month, while its essential plan starts at $99 per month.

5. Paligo

Paligo is a powerful help authoring tool that makes creating user manuals a breeze. It is a Component Content Management System (CCMS) that is focused on team collaboration. Paligo allows you to publish your content in various formats, including HTML5, print PDF, and SCORM. It integrates seamlessly with popular help desk platforms like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Salesforce. Paligo's review workflow allows everyone, including SMEs, reviewers, and occasional contributors, to collaborate and work on the same content in a centralized cloud platform.

With Paligo, you can create a robust user manual with its unique structured authoring, content sourcing, and reuse features that help you work smarter and faster. You can personalize your content for different audiences and publish the manual across the channels your customers prefer.

Paligo's CCMS provides complete control over how your content is organized and used in the manual. You can easily compare different versions of the same page or article, bring reviewers and contributors together, and get enterprise-grade security features that support top-notch encryption and backups.

Best of all, Paligo's easy-to-use XML editor makes structured authoring a breeze, allowing you to write once and repurpose the content to your desired format. Paligo's professional plan costs $179 per month per author, making it an ideal solution for enterprise companies.

Key Features of Paligo:

Pricing: Contact sales

Keep your customers in the know

Easily create comprehensive user manuals and invest into the education of your customers.

Trusted by 2,500+ companies

Free 14-day trial

6. ClickHelp

ClickHelp is a cloud-based help authoring tool that allows you to easily create user manuals and publish them across multiple outputs. You can import your content from various sources such as MS Word and Confluence, and reuse content as snippets, variables, and conditional content. ClickHelp enables you to publish either public or password-protected documentation, all from the same portal.

One of ClickHelp's standout features is its full-text search engine that is customized for documentation search. You can create taxonomies and customize search features to ensure users can easily find the content they're looking for. ClickHelp also offers in-depth analytics and reporting that includes author contribution and reader behavior reports, content metrics, and topic ratings based on user votes.

ClickHelp is designed for technical documentation and allows you to maintain multiple versions of articles. Its flexible roles and permissions management system protects your manual from unauthorized access. ClickHelp's infrastructure is reliable, user-friendly, and supports automatic backups.

ClickHelp's Essentials plan costs $55 per author per month, making it an affordable and feature-rich solution for creating user manuals.ClickHelp makes it easy for users to find what they're looking for with a special search engine. You can also make your own categories and customize your search features. Plus, ClickHelp gives you lots of info and reports on how people are using your content. You can see things like how long it takes to read, word count, and ratings based on user votes.

ClickHelp has an Essentials plan that costs $55 per author per month.

7. HelpDocs

Have you heard of HelpDocs? It's a super cool tool you can use to whip up a comprehensive user guide and manual in no time. With this platform, you can create a fully personalized and easy-to-search user guide that'll keep your focus on the people that matter most—your customers.

HelpDocs is all about making things quick and simple. It's got these awesome templates that speed up your content creation, and a drag-and-drop function that lets you move your content around with zero fuss.

Plus, it's packed with other nifty features like article blocks, keyboard shortcuts, and filters that'll have your articles ready before you know it. And here's the kicker—it's got this smarty-pants robot that can translate 100 articles a month into a bunch of different languages.

Some of the star features of HelpDocs include:

It's especially awesome if you need to limit or grant access to certain customers. People seem to love it too—it's got a rating of 4.6 out of 5. And you can start using it for just $49 a month.

HelpDocs is also great if you're after a friction-free way to host your user manuals. Its editor is easy to use and lets you add all kinds of custom formatting. It's got this really smart search function that even understands typos, and it delivers accurate results super fast.

Navigating your knowledge base is a breeze with HelpDocs because it supports unlimited subcategories. You can either use the attractive templates it comes with, or go to town customizing with CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.

HelpDocs's analytics let you see if you're getting more traffic and if your articles are leaving an impression. You can even schedule updates for your articles to keep them fresh. And it integrates seamlessly with tools like Lighthouse, Slack, Front, and Intercom.

So if HelpDocs sounds like your cup of tea, you can start with their plan for €40 a month.

8. Nuclino

Nuclino is a user-friendly and modern software that allows you to create to create interactive user guides and manuals with ease. The software offers a collaborative platform where you can organize knowledge, projects, and ideas, and work together in real-time. You can use Nuclino to add various elements to your user manual, such as text, images, videos, code blocks, and embeds.

The software offers an efficient way to organize your content by allowing you to switch between different knowledge base views, such as list, board, or graph. You can also use workspaces and clusters to organize your content further.

Nuclino integrates with over 40 external applications and is accessible through desktop and mobile apps. The software has an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that simplifies the process of creating user manuals.

Key Features of Nuclino:

9. ProProfs

ProProfs Knowledge Base is a simple, versatile, and user-friendly tool that helps you build an interactive user manual rich in meaningful content using text, images, and videos. The software's rich authoring, customization, import, and export capabilities enable you to get your user manual ready in no time.

ProProfs Knowledge Base is a powerful and robust tool that allows you to create both public and private knowledge bases, from customer-facing user manuals to internal employee handbooks. You can drag and drop content and categories and easily customize your knowledge base from within the settings, including changing the theme, adding a favicon, updating the logo, and more.

In addition to its customization capabilities, ProProfs Knowledge Base offers a workflow review and approval system, easy publishing options, and works well on all devices. You can even integrate ProProfs Knowledge Base with its sibling tools – ProProfs Chat and Help Desk for a superior customer experience. The software also allows you to integrate with popular ticketing and chat tools, including Google Analytics, Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Desk so you can link your existing support software stack with your knowledge base.

Key Features of ProProfs Knowledge Base:

ProProfs's essential plan costs $60 per month.

10. Helpcrunch

Helpcrunch is an excellent knowledge base software that helps with customer support and allows you to create a user manual from scratch quickly. It has SEO-friendly articles, and it offers live chat widget integrations with Helpcrunch’s other software. Your customers can access knowledge base content without ever leaving the widget, and your customer support team here can suggest articles too.

You can create help articles easily in the WYSIWYG editor, add images, videos, and tables, and publish them for your customers to see. Helpcrunch sorts your content into categories and sections to help your users navigate your knowledge base. The smart search bar on your knowledge base suggests articles automatically based on keywords, enabling your users to find the content they're looking for in no time.

Helpcrunch integrates with Google Analytics, so you can generate reports for failed search queries, and its reporting lets you see how your customers are responding to your articles. You can customize the appearance of your knowledge base with your brand colors, logo, header images, links, domain, custom CSS, JavaScript, and more.

Key Features of Helpcrunch: Easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor for creating articles Integrates with Google Analytics to monitor failed search queries Live chat widget integration Organize your content into categories and sections Customize your knowledge base with your brand colors, logo, and more

Best for: Teams looking for a customizable knowledge base solution with live chat widget integration

Pricing: Starts at £12 per user per month for the Standard plan.

12. Dozuki

Dozuki is a user manual software designed for industrial companies that helps create and manage their knowledge in a centralized space. With an intuitive authoring system, it allows experienced employees to create training materials from the production floor. Dozuki helps operations run smoothly by standardizing operation manuals, reducing waste and enforcing quality standards.

You can create work instructions and standards that everyone can follow, and train the workforce with an updated curriculum. Dozuki also helps manage the quality of work by analyzing who is following the procedures and which department needs improvement. You can use real-time information to analyze who is viewing the documentation, which part of the instructions is unclear and share examples for better clarity.

With over 80 available languages, you can create versions for other regional offices as well. There is also a mobile app that can be used to view and edit content on the go.

Dozuki also offers version control and workflow approval systems to track and maintain content quality standards. You can set access controls at a granular level, use customized workflows for content review and approvals, and send customized emails and instant notifications for process updates.

The software allows you to create content with embedded photos and videos in the right places, making document management easier. Its older versions can be archived for future reference.

Dozuki is suitable for centralized knowledge capture and real-time content updates. Its pricing starts at $349 per month, making it mostly suitable for enterprise companies. Its pricing for the Essential plan starts at $17/user/month.

Over to you

In conclusion, creating a user manual doesn't have to be a tedious process. With the help of the right software, you can make the experience more efficient and enjoyable. From collaboration tools to easy-to-use editors, structured authoring, and advanced analytics, you're sure to find the perfect software to fit your needs. Whether you're a startup or a large enterprise, the software options listed here can help you create impressive user manuals to improve your customer support and enhance user experience.