XDK is a serious authoring tool. It has got to be one of the easiest tools to use, yet has so many power- features borne from the experience of supporting over 40,000 HDK customers worldwide. Here’s just a snapshot of some of the highlights:
Utilizing the power of Word
Today, Word is a reasonably powerful document-editing tool. It delivers many clever design and proofing tools and it is able to integrate other office documents. Rather than give you a tool with an inferior editing environment and an unfamiliar interface, we’ve turned Word into a complete XML workshop.
XDK is a fully integrated dynamic pane within Word, so you get all the benefits of Word’s extended functionality, without the learning curve. This means better results in less time for you!
Getting Word to deliver XML
XDK uses the latest in online technology and formatting, XML. Only XML gives you the greatest degree of control over how your online documents will look. You also get to leverage off all the additional functionality XML provides. Even if you’ve got complex nested tables with bulleted lists and graphics, XDK will deliver an accurate edition for online.
And since XML is so powerful, when it comes to delivering your online documents and help systems, XDK can instantly create multiple editions using different technologies and designs from the one-source. You’re guaranteed that your project will look great and perform well, no matter if it’s for the Internet, Intranet, or software application Help.
Creating online documents your readers will use
One of the most important factors in getting people to use online documents, is to make it easy for them to find what they need. But have you noticed how easy it is to get lost in an online document?
XDK solves these two issues with XMheLp TOC Table Of Contents technology. This technology automatically integrates into your online document to provide your readers with a hierarchical navigation tree. But what’s unique is that XDK also provides topic Auto-sync and side entry for all its technology platforms. This means that as the user click on links and jumps around the document, the TOC will instantly update to show them where they are.
XDK also makes context-sensitive links into standard HTML possible, because the XMheLp technology allows direct entry into any point of your online document without causing errors with the TOC.
Big Projects?
XDK was purpose-built to handle massive projects. There’s a number of unique features that allow XDK to handle even your largest online document:
Dynamic Styles
Any documentation professional understands the importance of styles. They form the building blocks of modern document technology… change a style property once and you change everything that shares that style. (That’s so much more efficient that manually updating everything). XDK uses styles throughout to manage properties for Pages, Links and Graphics. As soon as you have a project over 50 pages, you’ll come to realise this feature is absolutely vital.
Dynamic Merging
XDK also has a powerful Dynamic Merging feature that will automatically aggregate multiple online documents. To the end-user, the document appears as one seamless document, but as the author, you are able to break the project down into smaller chapters. Each chapter is developed and maintained individually. XDK will automatically amalgamate them… including the TOC, full-text searching and indexing across all chapters!
The best navigation tools, bar none
XDK not only has XMhelp TOC technology to make documents easier to navigate, but XDK also provides a complete range of navigational aides. Everything from automatic Breadcrumb trails, through Navigation tool bars, Tab controls, user-sortable tables, expandable/collapsible dynamic text and much more.
More DHTML means more functionality. And that means your online documents will be functional, easy to comprehend and fun.
Help Systems with power
XDK will let you create powerful Web-based help systems. You can choose to ship a single-file help system with your software product, or deliver help over the Web. XDK’s help systems can be delivered to any platform, including Unix!
Windows 2000, XP.
Word 2000, XP, 2003
