We are always seeking for any type of documentation tools that can help anyone create, construct or design better documentation for their products. The reason is that the documentation should be easily understandable by everyone. This calls us to use tools that can assist us in creating the best possible documentation possible.
It’s a known fact that as a developer, you must be able to write clean, neat and descriptive code. In order to do that, you need proper documentation for yourself and other members of the team. These tools help you document your code and become more effective.
Whatfix
Whatfix is a Digital Adoption Platform that allows you to create step-by-step walkthroughs that act as real-time software documentation by guiding employees through your software. If you already have a knowledge base, you can display your documentation in a self-help widget.
Whatfix is redefining how software documentation is displayed and consumed, with new content embedded directly within your software applications in forms such as interactive guidance, contextual walkthroughs, self-help FAQs, popup notifications and beacons, and more. The platform also allows you to measure the usage and effectiveness of your documentation with user analytics.
ProProfs
ProProfs knowledge base software is a knowledge management tool that lets you create searchable online FAQs and help docs. In addition, you can add videos, audio, images, and infographics to your documentation to make your software documentation more interactive and compelling.
Tettra
Tettra is a tool for internal company use. It’s a wiki and knowledge management system that lets teams create content other employees can read and comment on. This tool is specifically built to work with Slack and features integrations with several other tools, including GSuite, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, and Zapier.
GitHub
GitHub is a cloud-based website and service that stores code and helps developers control and track changes through a version control system called GIT to host and review code. In addition to their repository, they offer GitHub Pages, a website hosting service that takes files directly from a GitHub repository and runs the files through a process that creates a website. This feature gives developers an easy way to create software documentation in plain text or Markdown.
Read the Docs
Whatfix is an interactive digital adoption platform that fills a significant gap in digital change management by offering employee onboarding support and ongoing training. Whatfix’s interactive walkthroughs (workflows) help companies speed up the switch to new software. This change management tool walks users through each process in the new technology via personalized onboarding and training programs.
Typora
Typora is a simple document reader and writer that provides support for Markdown — a plain text format that’s easy to read and write. This software appeals to developers who want to remove distractions by hiding unwanted elements, like preview windows. It also has a live preview feature to allow you to focus on your content.
Software Documentation Tool: MarkdownPad
MarkdownPad is one of the most famous markdown document editors for windows. You can use MarkdownPad to write articles, READMEs, and of course, software documentation.
With instant HTML previews, users can quickly see what their documents look like in HTML as they create them.
MarkdownPad offers a lot of customizing options like color schemes, fonts, sizes, and layouts. It even supports your custom CSS stylesheets and has a built-in CSS editor. Users can easily convert their written text into HTML or even export their documents as PDFs.
With a simple, easy to use user interface, MarkdownPad is a great document editor for software documentation. However, the lack of cloud features and the fact that it’s only supported on windows can be a bummer for a lot of you out there.
Software Documentation Tool: Doxygen
If you want to generate automatic documentation from your C++ code, Doxygen is a great tool. Recently, Doxygen has also started documentation support for other popular programming languages such as C, Objective-C, C#, PHP, Java, Python, IDL Fortran, etc.
Doxygen directly extracts the documentation from the sources, making it easier to keep the documentation consistent with the source code. Users can then export the documentation in RTF (MS-Word), PostScript, hyperlinked PDF, compressed HTML, and Unix man pages. Users can even generate graphs and diagrams from the source code, making it a highly customizable and feature-rich tool.
Doxygen is free for use and works on all top operating systems- macOS, Linux, and Windows.
Nuclino
Nuclino is a unified workspace where teams can organize all their knowledge, docs, and projects — like a collective brain. It’s a great solution for lightweight internal documentation, but it’s not all it can do.
Nuclino offers a variety of ways to structure and visualize your documents, including a nested list, a Kanban board, and a mindmap-style graph, allowing you to collaborate on projects, plan your sprints, communicate asynchronously, and more. You can essentially consolidate all your work in one tool, minimizing unnecessary context-switching.
Nuclino is designed to eliminate as much friction from the writing process as possible. Its clean, intuitive interface makes it a great solution for both, technical and non-technical users. The editor supports a set of Markdown commands that allow you to quickly format your docs without taking your hands off the keyboard. Organizing your documentation is just as easy with wiki-style internal links, which allow you to link related documents together.
Every Nuclino page can be collaboratively edited in real time without edit-save-conflict cycles, and every edit is preserved in the version history. The instant search function allows you to locate the docs you need in seconds.
If you want to create clean, consistent documentation and value ease-of-use and speed, look no further than Nuclino.
What users say about Nuclino:
“I had never used a product like Nuclino until joining my current startup, and I’ve been really impressed with it. It’s super easy to use and edit and it looks clean. It’s been an essential tool for me as I’ve built out all of the documentation for my department. Some of my favorite features are the ability to pin articles and the ability to include boxes of code (and you can specify the language – there are a bunch to choose from, although I’ve only used SQL).”
BookStack
BookStack is another wiki-style documentation tool. It’s open-source, self-hosted, and highly flexible.
While the interface and navigation are fairly user-friendly, note that the initial installation may require some patience and technical skills. Once your documentation platform is up and running, however, it should be easy to bring your team on board.
If you would prefer a self-hosted documentation tool rather than a cloud-based one, BookStack is definitely worth evaluating.
What users say about BookStack:
“The stock interface design has a modern feel and is simple for new users to use. Granular permissions can be set up for specific roles on a per-content basis and permissions will waterfall down to child content. However, the current installation process involves many steps and may be a lot to take in for people not familiar with setting up Laravel applications.”
— (Slant review)
Conclusion
Documentation is one of the most important aspects of software development. It acts as an aid to our memories, but also serves to inform new team members on how they can build or enhance parts of the project. If you’re familiar with the lifecycle of documentation, you know it’s not something you do at the end of a project.