What your colleagues say about Dr.Explain

Software developers have many skills, but a professional design sense isn't always one of them. Even developers who know good design don't often have much practice with InDesign or similar programs, so any sort of layout project--like creating software documentation--can be tremendously time-consuming. Dr. Explain can help, and this app just received a couple dozen improvements and fixes to bring it up to version 2.6.

Dr. Explain can save you countless hours of copying, pasting, linking, and other design busywork by automatically capturing screens from your software, then generating interactive screenshots complete with callouts and links for all your window controls. All you have to do is flesh it out with some descriptive text to create final help files, whether it's CHM, HTML, or printable docs.

From the July 18, 2007 issue of CNet Download Dispatch Newsletter.

Paul Hughes
Contributing Editor, CNET Download.com

Dr.Explain is a help authoring program with a focus on visually describing the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) of programs. It is an excellent tools for easily creating those "Quick Start" guides that have lots of screenshots of the program and help you learn where everything resides in a program. It is also great for detailed user manuals that document all of the features and options reachable through a program's GUI through highly annotated screenshots. Dr.Explain's well thought-out design and intuitive workflow means even the default configuration produces attractive user-friendly interactive documentation with a minimal amount of fuss.

Read the full review on DonationCoder.com: Dr.Explain Review

Chaim Krause

Technical writers will really appreciate how much work this program does for them, and developers will undoubtedly find this a useful tool in identifying opportunities to improve their programs. The price sounds a little high, but I can assure you that the product will easily pay for itself on the first project.

Read the full review on Free-Downloads.net: Dr.Explain Review

Charles Akin

If you're just wrapping up development on a piece of software and you're dreading the process of generating help documentation, have no fear: just visit the doctor. Dr.Explain is a cleverly designed help tool that - unlike a flesh-and-blood doctor - can promise quick and completely painless assistance.

Give it a window capture from your application, and it will automatically generate a GUI-based sequence of callouts for every control on the screen, which you can then author in HTML, CHM, or RTF to integrate into your app or Web site.

From the August 9, 2006 issue of CNet Download Dispatch Newsletter.

Paul Hughes
Contributing Editor, CNET Download.com

Dr. Explain is, without question, an awesome piece of software.

The guys behind Dr. Explain have created a simple and powerful problem solver. The problem, of course, is how to quickly create Help Documentation. Their solution is the best I've seen.

So go get it, try it out. You'll see what I mean.

Read the full review on DewDawn.com: Examining The Doctor

Stuart Andrews
Editor, DevDawn.com

If you are like me, creating software is often the most enjoyable thing about being an independent software vendor. However, two less enjoyable parts of the business also happen to be very important: 1) marketing and 2) software documentation. Dr. Explain makes the creation of documentation easier - and almost enjoyable.

Dr. Explain is worthy of your investigation for (at least) two reasons: 1) it is very affordably priced and 2) it is very easy (fun?) to use.

If you haven't already discovered Dr. Explain then I strongly recommend you check it out. Tell the Doctor I sent you! :-)

Read the full review on DeveloperReviewed.com: Dr Explain - A Good Prescription for Documenting Software

Dennis Baggott
Editor, DeveloperReviewed.com

Dr. Explain presents an automated approach to creating very comprehensive help files quickly. Dr. Explain captures windows from a live WindowsR-based application and creates screenshots as you would expect, but then it analyzes the window content, enumerates the screens, and attaches numbered callouts to all the significant elements.

All captured windows are stored in a single project file. You can group them by modules, and when something changes, you can update individual windows, add new screenshots, and update control references. You don't need to recreate the whole sequence of windows.

With Dr. Explain, you can customize the structure of the menus, screen layout, colors, and callout details. Then you just export the project to HTML. You get instant online help complete with index page, menus, hyperlinked callouts, and professional screens all formatted and ready to upload to your server.

From the December 2005 issue of MSDN Magazine.

Marnie Hutcheson
New Stuff column Editor, MSDN Magazine

Dr.Explain from Indigo Byte Systems is a Help-authoring tool for rapid creation of Help files and user guides. It is designed for software developers, ISV, micro ISV, and technical writers, and includes auto-capture and annotation technology that allows you to document your software interfaces easily. Dr.Explain parses a live application and automatically produces screenshots of its windows, along with a sequence of callouts for each window control. You only have to add some description to each callout as needed. Dr.Explain can output the results as a set of HTML pages, a CHM Help file, or a rich-text format document. The results include screenshots, cross-references, menus, and an index page ...

Visual Studio Magazine, September issue, 2006

After spending the last couple of decades wearing Developer and Business Analyst hats, I have recently found myself wearing the Technical Writer chapeau. A search on the internet turned up scores of utilities, tools and programs to aid in help file writing. But there was one functionality in particular I knew was a pre-requisite - take a picture of a Windows program and produce callouts or bullets for each control.

And here is where Dr. Explain (DE) enters the picture. I took it for a test drive and knew in less than a day that it would serve my purposes well.

A DE project (and some of mine are rather huge) can generate HTML, CHM or RTF output. I've used them all. I thought the purchase price was a little low compared to similar programs I found but I love a bargain. Of course, with such a reasonable cost I should assume support would be weak. I couldn't have been more wronger (and, yes, I'm aware of the poor grammar but it makes a point)! From stupid user questions (we're all capable of them and I asked more than my fair share) to suggestions for enhancements to even a little hand-holding on some XSLT code, the team at DE has been far and away more helpful than I would have expected if I had spent $500 for the product.

If I've found a bug (which is rare) they have a fix on the way with 24 hours. I've even gotten the same turnaround time on enhancement suggestions. They must work 'round the clock because no matter what day of the week or time of day I've jotted off a question or request, an answer comes back within minutes or just a few hours. They are responsive and helpful in the extreme.

I can't recommend this product and company more highly. And, no, I'm not getting paid to gush. DE is just an excellent tool that every Technical Writer, Help Author, or Developer should keep in their arsenal.

Craig Prichard
Technical Writer
Jager Building Systems Inc.
Calgary, AB Canada

Very nice job! Great example of meeting an unmet need that has been around for years.

Bob Walsh
Safari Software, Inc
The author of "Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality" book

I have to say I'm very impressed with Dr. Explain. Thank you all for developing a great product, and especially for making available the absolute best tool of its class.

Alexander A. Kardailsky
Astersoft Co. Ltd.
Member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP)

I think you are onto an excellent product here and I've said so in the newsgroup. That's the good stuff. Dr.Explain, as I have mentioned before I think it is a great product.

Phill Hellewell
P&M Software
Member of the Association of Independent Software Industry Professionals (AISIP)

Using Dr. Explain we were able to quickly and easily port over our old linear documentation to a much more user friendly GUI based help resource.

Chris Truxaw
CT Developing

We have successfully used your Dr.Explain program for our help file and also for some of the pages on the web. Great program! Please let me add that Dr.Explain really has cut the job of explaining the user interface of ViceVersa by half (at least) and produced a very professional output.

Director
TGRMN Software

We have found Drexplain to be an excellent product - help files are now (almost) fun rather than being a tedious chore. All stages of help file construction are smooth and intuitive and the resultant help files look great. The time savings gained over coventional help authoring systems is considerable.

Murray Gillespie
Lygil Software

I really like Dr.Explain. It's helped me to prepare software documentation fast and without exhausting text and image formatting.

Andrei Kharin
Xpress Software Inc.

I don't want to do complicated works to create a help file in our projects before I found Dr.Explan.

William Chan
TacoTech Software Co.

The new version 2.0 is a big improvement - good work!

Nick Hebb
BreezeTree Software, LLC

After playing around with your software for a few hours, I am very impressed by it. A good idea which has been implemented well.

Ashu Potnis

Wow what a great product.
Over the years I have used many help authoring systems with almost too many features to name. What I found out is that a lot of these features didn't stand the test of time or where hard to implement so I always ended up not using them. I've used Robo... for years and got sick of their extortion about 3 years ago.

Dr. Explain has a simple intuitive interface and produces documentation from the applications screen shot which makes a lot more sense than cutting and pasting images in a descriptive text document. By recognizing individual controls on a screen and letting you edit the pointers and text for each item you can get the job done a lot faster.

It also has no dependancy on the version of your Word Processor like some other products I've used. Very impressive piece of software!

Michael Lawson
Farpoint Solutions / Secure Design Technologies

Last night I was working with the trial version of Dr. Explain. I was impressed. I bought and registered the software.

Terry Jepson
WISCO Computing

Great product getting even better! Dr. Explain is a great tool!

Tom Bodine
Bodine Training Games LLC

Briljant piece of software!!

Daniel Nikolic
DNC-IT

I like the product and it's simplicity. Keep on going with the good works!

Bram Klootwijk
Datatrieve Software b.v.

Seriously, thanks for a great product. It helped me look good to the people I work for. Best wishes on your continued sucess!

Mark Jerde

Thumbs up! Good luck!

Patrick McKenzie
"MicroISV on a Shoestring" blogger

We are using Dr.Explain to produce CHM help, product documentation and to incorporate Web based html for a very large enterprise application. The tools and features within Dr. Explain have definitely made the job much simpler. Besides having a great product, the people at Dr. Explain have shown exceptional cooperation for incorporating ideas asked for by end users. This has increased our satisfaction with the decision to use Dr. Explain in our enterprise product development.

James Neill, VP
Accelerated Design, Inc.

Very cool app!

Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc

Good job pal. I like your tool.

Ali
phpLazy.com

Also might I say, this is a great program that solves many needs for businesses today. Once we get our documentation done, I'm probably going to turn around and purchase the whole package for the company. Thanks again and Great Work!

Robert Connely IV
Grid Engineer
Novo Innovations, Inc.

Dr.Explain is just GREAT! It helps to create amazingly neat and easy-to-read documentation in just a couple of clicks.

We have been using many help authoring for our products, but Dr.Explain's intuitive interface and great results it produces beat'em all. Guys, you've got a savvy designer, and you understand both developers' & users' needs to an immense extent. Since now your software is the only solution responsible for creating all the documentation for our numerous products.

I just can't thank you enough. I would HIGHLY recommend your product to every developer who cares about his product.
Keep up the good work!

Viktar Khamianok
Link-Assistant.com

I just want to say, your product is a god-send. It is a real time-saver and the result it produces is very professional. Keep up the good work!

Len White
Active Java, LLC

Your software was exactly what I was looking for when creating API documentation internally. Now if I want to change the HTML around it I can update the template, and re-generate. Damn that is sweet. I remember when you talked about this software about a year...or maybe two years ago and I was going to get it...then I forgot about it. This will save me tons and tons of time.
Thanks for a great product.

Steve Wiseman
IntelliNavigator, Inc

After months making excuses not to create html help I started the work using Dr Explain. Help in html format, chm format and a user manual were all ready within a few days.

Steve Wolstenholme
Neural Planner Software Ltd

We started using Dr.Explain for our online and application help files because it allows us to do all our documentation requirements in one place.

James Hall
Cypress Technologies

Dr Explain made generating the help files a pleasure rather than a chore.

Dr. Phil Brierley
Tiberius Data Mining

Dr. Explain is a great tool! They have clearly put a lot of thought and work into this product. It is very rare these days to find software that just "works the way it should" - but Dr Explain is such a tool. Thanks for making such a great product!

Director
JetTask Software

I love Dr.Explain by the way. Keep up the great work.

Brian Bakkebo
Right Away Mortgage

Just a few words about us - we are a hospice providing palliative care service in the north of New Zealand. We have an inpatient unit for up to eight patients but most of the hundred or so patients we care for at any given time are looked after mainly in their own home by our community based nurses. As well as offering our own service we also act as a referral centre for 3 other palliative care services in our region.

About 15 months ago we began using electronic patient notes which are internet based, to allow for a real time interactive approach to clinical care for our patients. This is the first project in New Zealand using an internet based database. We work with a provider in Australia but have had to adapt the programme to meet our needs.

I was asked to write a User Manual for the new system. Having never done that before I looked at several programmes and found Dr.Explain not only very easy to use, but the answers from the HelpDesk were always very prompt, helpful, supportive and the staff were open to new suggestions. It was a delight to work with you guys and I compliment you on your professional capability and client service.

Walter Nasarek
Clinical Resource and IT Nurse
North Haven Hospice (New Zeland)

Dr. Explain is perfect! It's really intuitive and it let me save so much time. The final product looks great and for all of those reasons I will continue to use it for a long time!

Vincent Trepanier
Vinity Soft

This is the best of any of the companies I deal with in cooperation with customers!!! Dr. Explain is most open to customers suggestions and implements those ideas in a timely and thoughtful way.

C. Chambers
C. Chambers LLC

No matter how intuitive, help must only be a click away, easy to find and simple to understand. We chose Dr. Explain for it's ease of use and great end product layout for all our help needs - chm, html and pdf.

Glen Harvy
Aquarius Communications

Dr. Explain saved us many hours and allowed us to create help for our service in a very structured way. We found Dr Explain very intuitive and we would highly recommend it to anybody who needs to document their product and deploy it on the Internet, within an application or into a word processing document.

Darren Stoppler
Stoppler Solutions Inc.