Help+Manual

What Help+Manual does

Help+Manual is a WYSIWYG XML-based documentation authoring suite developed and sold by EC Software GmbH, a privately held Austrian software company founded in 1997 and headquartered in Salzburg. The core product enables technical writers, software developers, and documentation teams to author content once and publish it to more than ten formats — WebHelp, HTML Help (CHM), PDF, ePub, Kindle, DOCX, eWriter, and ZipHelp — using conditional content tags to produce channel-specific outputs without post-processing. The suite is delivered in three perpetual-license editions (Basic €569, Professional €899, Floating License €1,569 for concurrent/terminal-server use) and is extended by an integrated ecosystem of ancillary tools: HelpXplain (animated HTML5 tutorials), SnipSVG (SVG-based screen capture and graphics editor with OCR), eWriter (self-contained eBook compiler), the Premium Pack (40+ responsive WebHelp skins), and the Translation Assistant (side-by-side localization with DeepL and ChatGPT plugins).

The company's revenue model combines one-time perpetual license sales with modest recurring annual maintenance fees (€49.80–€313.80 per license per year) and add-on purchases (Premium Pack €179, HelpXplain €249, Translation Assistant €398). Distribution is primarily direct via the company's own webshop with a 30-day fully functional trial, supplemented by Cleverbridge AG as a global reseller handling phone, fax, and online orders across Germany, the UK, and the USA. Customer segments span professional technical writers, software developers (with Visual Studio source-extraction integration), documentation teams needing version control and translation workflows, part-time individual authors, and organizations migrating legacy content from Word, RoboHelp, Author-It, and Winhelp. Customer concentration is low, with a long-tail mix of SMB and individual buyers and only a handful of named enterprise references (DevExpress, Philabundance, SERVICE&MORE, CyBio AG). The most recent product wave — Help+Manual Version 10 (September 2025) and 10.2 (April 2026) — embedded generative AI (ChatGPT/OpenAI, DeepL Write) and computer-vision OCR directly into the authoring workflow, while keeping the underlying business model, pricing tiers, and bootstrapped, founder-owned structure unchanged.

Name

Help+Manual

Legal name

EC Software GmbH

Website

https://helpandmanual.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1997

Operating status

Operating

Short description

EC Software GmbH's Help+Manual is a Salzburg-based WYSIWYG XML documentation authoring suite that lets technical writers, developers, and documentation teams publish to WebHelp, CHM, PDF, ePub, and other formats from a single source, sold via perpetual licenses, annual maintenance, and add-ons, with recent AI and OCR integrations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Salzburg

HQ country

Austria

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Software Licenses (Perpetual): Help+Manual is sold as a perpetual one-time license with 12 months of free maintenance included. Three editions available: Basic (€569), Professional (€899), and Floating License (€1569). Upgrades from older versions available at discounted prices.
2. Maintenance Subscriptions: Annual maintenance renewal extends free updates and support. Prices: Professional €313.80/year, Floating License €113.80/year, Basic €49.80/year. New maintenance begins on expiry date of previous maintenance.
3. Add-on Products: Premium Pack 6 (€179) for professional skins/templates, Help+Manual Translation Assistant (€398) for side-by-side translation work, and HelpXplain (€249) for animated step-by-step tutorials.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Help+Manual is a full-featured WYSIWYG XML-based help authoring and documentation tool that allows technical writers and developers to create professional documentation from a single source and publish it to multiple formats including WebHelp, CHM, PDF, ePub, eWriter, ZipHelp, DOCX, and Kindle. It includes integrated version control, team collaboration, translation management with DeepL/ChatGPT, screen capture tools, and import wizards for legacy formats such as Microsoft Word, Adobe RoboHelp, Author-It, and Winhelp.

Product overview

Help+Manual is a documentation authoring suite developed by EC Software GmbH (Salzburg, Austria) consisting of a core product with multiple editions and related tools. The core Help+Manual product offers Basic, Professional, and Floating License editions for single-user, team, and enterprise deployments. The ecosystem includes HelpXplain for HTML slideshow presentations, eWriter for eBook compilation, and SnipSVG for screen capture—all free tools that integrate with the main platform. Premium Pack add-on provides professional skins for responsive WebHelp output. The Help+Manual Translation Assistant serves as a standalone companion for localization workflows. Additional free utilities include QtHelpConverter for Qt framework integration, Help+Manual 2 Go for local WebHelp serving, and Delphi components for developers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• HelpXplain: Animated step-by-step tutorial and slideshow tool for creating interactive presentations from screenshots.
• SnipSVG
• eWriter
• Premium Pack
• Help+Manual Translation Assistant

Products and services

• Help+Manual Full-featured WYSIWYG XML-based help authoring and documentation tool that enables single-source multi-channel publishing to WebHelp, CHM, PDF, ePub, Kindle, DOCX, eWriter, and ZipHelp formats. Designed for technical writers, software developers, and documentation teams.
• Help+Manual Version 10 Major release of Help+Manual featuring integrated AI plugins (ChatGPT, DeepL Write), SnipSVG vector graphics editor, and High-DPI dark mode interface. Enables AI-assisted content generation, translation, proofreading, and summarization.
• Help+Manual 10.2 and Translation Assistant 10.2 Maintenance release of Help+Manual with updated DeepL plugin language support and bundled SnipSVG 2.2 OCR capability.
• Help+Manual 10.1.0 Point release of Help+Manual 10 with proxy fix for the ChatGPT plugin and dialog improvements.
• Help+Manual 9.5 Prior major release of Help+Manual that introduced OCR capability using the Windows OCR engine.
• Help+Manual Translation Assistant Standalone concurrent floating-license application for translating Help+Manual documentation projects side-by-side. Includes DeepL plugin for bulk translations and ChatGPT integration. Designed for translators performing original translations and updates.
• Premium Pack Professional template and skin package providing 40+ professionally designed skins for one-click responsive WebHelp publishing. Includes advanced HTML functions, tabbed navigation, non-scrolling headers, dynamic sortable tables, index search, draggable JavaScript popups, and dropdown navigation menus.
• HelpXplain HTML presentation tool for creating animated step-by-step instructions and slideshows from screenshots. Uses infinite canvas methodology with 100% HTML5 and JavaScript output. Includes built-in screen capture and screencast recording capabilities for interactive e-learning tutorials.
• eWriter HTML-to-eBook compiler that packages complete HTML applications into single-file executables. Supports Unicode, HTML5, CSS3, password protection, expiry dates, and digital signing. Available for Windows and macOS.
• SnipSVG Free cross-platform screen capture and SVG-based graphics editor with integrated syntax highlighting, animation capabilities, and OCR text extraction from images. Fully integrated into Help+Manual 10.
• SnipSVG 2.2 Updated release of SnipSVG adding OCR capability that extracts text from PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, and SVG images using the Windows 10/11 OCR engine.
• QtHelpConverter Free converter application that transforms compiled HTML Help (.chm) files into Qt Help (.qch) format, enabling use of HTML Help documentation in Qt applications.
• Help+Manual 2 Go Mini web server for local WebHelp testing and deployment. Single portable executable that serves WebHelp documentation locally from CD, DVD, or local installation without requiring a full web server.
• eWriter Help System for Delphi Open-source Delphi/RAD Studio component implementing eWriter help format as a replacement for HTML Help (.chm) files. Includes Vcl.EwriterHelpViewer.pas unit for Delphi help system integration.
• eWriter Viewer Version 3 Redesigned eWriter viewer application with multi-language UI, single-instance multi-window design, and command line interface for Windows and macOS.

Quantifiable outcome

• 30-day fully functional free trial available
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability5 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• DeepLcoreTechnology or IntegrationDeepL is integrated as a plugin within Help+Manual for machine translation of documentation content. The plugin supports translation of snippets, TOC structures, selected text, or entire topics at one mouse click, supporting nine languages including Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, and Vietnamese as of version 10. DeepL Write proofreading and grammar assistant is also included.
• OpenAI (ChatGPT)coreTechnology or IntegrationChatGPT is available as a plugin interface in Help+Manual 10, configured to enable AI-assisted content editing directly within documentation topics. Users can utilize ChatGPT for translating topics, writing new content, proofreading, editing, and summarizing topics.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Confluence (Atlassian): Atlassian Confluence with the Refined or Scroll documentation plugins is a cloud-native collaborative documentation platform used by many software developer and documentation teams. It competes with Help+Manual as a different paradigm (cloud collaborative wiki vs on-premise single-source publisher) but serves an overlapping customer base.
• Adobe RoboHelp: RoboHelp is the long-established incumbent in technical authoring and is explicitly listed by Help+Manual as a legacy format it can import from. It targets the same single-source multi-format publishing workflow but with the backing of Adobe's marketing and Creative Cloud bundling.

Direct peers

• Author-IT: Author-It is a structured content authoring and component content management system for technical publications, competing in the same single-source, multi-channel publishing category. Help+Manual provides explicit migration tools to import Author-It XML sources, indicating direct overlap in target customers.
• MadCap Software (MadCap Flare): MadCap Flare is the most direct competitor to Help+Manual: a single-source help and documentation authoring tool that publishes to WebHelp, CHM, HTML Help, PDF, and ePub from one source. Targets the same professional technical writers and software developer documentation use cases.
• WebWorks (ePublisher): ePublisher by WebWorks is a documentation publishing platform focused on converting FrameMaker and other source content into multi-format outputs including WebHelp and PDF. It overlaps with Help+Manual's single-source, multi-format publishing positioning and team documentation workflows.
• Dr.Explain: Dr.Explain is an on-premise help authoring tool that generates documentation, user manuals, and context-sensitive help from a single source. It competes head-to-head with Help+Manual in the professional technical writer and software documentation category.
• HelpNDoc: HelpNDoc is a help authoring tool for creating documentation in HTML, CHM, PDF, ePub, and Kindle formats, targeting the same individual technical writers and small teams as Help+Manual's Basic and Professional editions with a similar perpetual license model.

Emerging players

• Sphinx (Read the Docs project): Sphinx, commonly used with Read the Docs, is the dominant open-source documentation generator for software developer and API documentation. It overlaps with Help+Manual on the software developer documentation and API help use cases, representing a free, developer-centric alternative to commercial authoring tools.
• GitBook: GitBook is a cloud-native technical documentation platform popular with software developer and API documentation use cases, representing the newer SaaS-first wave of tools competing for the same budget and use cases (developer help, user manuals, knowledge bases) that Help+Manual addresses.
• ClickHelp: ClickHelp is a cloud-based help authoring tool that produces WebHelp, PDF, CHM, and other formats, representing the SaaS evolution of the on-premise category in which Help+Manual competes. It targets the same technical writer and software documentation use cases with browser-based collaboration.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/helpandmanual

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Help+Manual