Author-It Reviews & Product Details

dataglobal has been using author-IT as an enterprise-wide editorial system at multiple locations since 2006. Currently, there are about 70,000 objects in the database.

When selecting our enterprise-wide editorial system, a modular model with integrated role distribution was of crucial importance to us.

The role distribution function allows us to involve a variety of authors in the creation of new content. For example, our employees in development, who have very deep knowledge in their field, can begin the documentation process for a new function long before its market launch.

Editorial revision and preparation are then carried out centrally by the documentation department.

As a company, we also have high demands on our layout design. Therefore, we use publishing templates adapted to the target audience.

Another important factor for us is multi-channel publishing. This allows us to achieve great synergy effects and save valuable time by being able to publish the already existing editorial content in different target formats.

author-IT has developed into a fundamental component in our documentation process. Starting with technically detailed product documentation, through online help in HTML format, to marketing literature, author-IT can fully meet our requirements. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Kleine Kommunikation über bevorstehende Roadmap-Funktionen. Dies könnte mit einem einfachen monatlichen/vierteljährlichen Newsletter verbessert werden. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Author-it is a mature component content management system. I've been using it now for 15 years. It is stable, and I rarely have any problems with it. It looks after all my content without me having to worry. I'm able to efficiently manage content, create content and generate it when I need it.

They have recently released "Magellan" a fully responsive HTML5 output that ticks all the boxes if you want a modern-looking responsive help system. It is easy to put together, and I found t relatively easy to style to my company's brand. It does require some CSS skills but not many.

I can create multiple variants and publish to different brands and versions with the same content. It takes some setup, but it is just as simple as a button press. In a team, you need one reasonably knowledgeable admin who can do the setup. In addition, I don't need to worry about format. I can publish to PDF HTML, Word or responsive HTML format. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is very little I dislike about it. There are like many packages niggles and bugs but lately, they have been really good at sorting some of these out, giving us the ability to change the appearance of the editor's UI colour is one such instance.

They respond quickly to problems you may have and have knowledgeable staff who can help you. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Love it. I’ve loved it for years. Superb tools with forgivable compromises. We use the Cloud version for a globally distributed team. We have authors in the US, UK, Germany and India so far... I love the way you can throw yourself in as a team, be productive immediately, and tidy up using the tools as you evolve your solution. The nicest thing about implementing it this time around is how outstandingly positive my whole team have been about the tool and the experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Minor things that haven't been sorted out for years but make a huge impact on their target users, like hyperlinks in Word documents or not having table numbering without customization. These days we also want tagging and taxonomy but these are not explicitly supported and need workarounds. Final snag is no internal baseline feature; you can export the whole book as XML and re-import it later though. These little things that have a big effect and prevent more widespread adoption. Overall though, these compromises do not invalidate the huge benefits of having a global, Cloud-based, relational database of content that can be reused so easily and managed so effectively. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I really liked the easy use of Author-It. You did not have to worry about how everything will look later on in the published PDF. Setting styles prior to writing the sections will ensure that everything is presented nicely in the exported PDF. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Although I liked that you did not have to worry about how the PDF will look once exported, occasionally it was hard to "fix" something afterward, as you would only know what the end product looks like once it was exported. It would sometimes take a couple of exports to get some numbering or a table right. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

You do not have to do any formatting yourself. It is easy to start using Author-It, and once you know what you are doing, it is very intuitive and easy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sometimes it is hard no knowing what the formatting will look like before publishing. It would be good to have an idea of how the PDF looks before publishing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is cloud based. Initially we had a lot of issues with stability and reliability but over the last 2 years with the planned releases things have improved. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Most of the interactions are very mouse heavy. I would prefer more keyboard ways of doing things. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

My organization has been using Author-it close for almost 8 years now, and we have had a great experience with the tool.

My favourite aspect of Author-it is how light it is. We can access the product from anywhere, and we require zero IT help in maintaining it. We also maintain all of our templates ourselves. The odd time we need support to lend a hand, they respond within minutes and are incredible helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only downside is that over the last few years, updates have slowed down. However, with Paul Trottier back in the fold, we have seen a HUGE improvement in the release cadence, inclusion of new features and overall experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Author-It allows you to create, manage, review, finalize and publish learning content or any other kind of documentation at a central location. With its cloud-based technology, it is easy to access and update the content on the fly. Since Author-It is a cloud-based platform, it's easy for the team to collaborate in content creation. You don't need knowledge about the DITA and XML to create content, making the tool great. There are so many different kinds of materials you can create—for example, SOPs, eLearning, and so on. One of the best features is that Author-It can transform existing content into different learning outputs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Though it's an easy-to-use tool, it takes some time to get familiar with the interface. With your broadband connection is not that great, you may face issues while updating the existing content - as it takes some time to get the updates reflected. If you compare this with other tools like XOPUS, which supports XML and DITA standards, the response time is quicker. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like the control that I can place in Author-IT around the structure and formatting of documents. Too many times the documents created in document editing platforms have issues with external editors changing fonts and styles to their own desires rather than a business branded style and there is a large amount of re-work on standardising formatting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The upgrades to Author-IT are centred around EU and US servers can client times. Typically this means I can be out of action for half a day when upgrades happen. It would be great to have an offline component or an AU cloud instance that is of less impact here. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The ability to reuse content and customize content for different books. You can write a piece of content but use a variable that populates the verbiage with a product name. Then multiple authors can use the content without having to rewrite or tweak. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The way the windows of the application work on the screen. The main screen opens to a book and from there you open a topic. You can't minimize the other screens. A multiple monitor implementation is essential. It is a real challenge to use remotely. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.