What's new from Author-it?
In recent years several clients have commented that there does not seem to have been much development of features or new modules being undertaken by Author-it. It seemed that while a lot of effort was going into the Life Sciences there was not much being done in the HighTech side, where the smaller teams are normally to be found.
While that may be the perspective for several users, behind the scenes the development team at Author-it have been hard at work. (A couple of years back we had the quite underwhelming release of HTML5 output capability, but otherwise not very much else.) We're very happy to be able to report to our user family and prospects that this is all changing, even though we've had to wait a long time (and are still waiting for some additional features). The development team are going to great lengths to ensure that the software is as bug-free as possible and that the new features really work. We're confident that they will and are looking forward to their release.
Here's what has been released …- the ability to publish directly to PDF using a PDF ProCSS add-on.
- "Honeycomb", a new responsive HTML5 eLearning module
- There's still more that is "coming soon" (we've been telling clients that for a long time now, but it is getting closer). Author-it developers are working hard to release the updated Web Help with as many design features as possible, and in conformance with their strict approach to providing quality software the final tests and tweaks are taking a little time, but it's coming! We've seen the future of Web Help (to be given a unique name, still to be announced) and with Author-it, it's bright!
This was actually released a while back, and uses CSS3 technology. Tests have shown that publishing to PDF can be reduced by up to 90% for large documents, which is pretty snappy (notwithstanding the usual caveats of system and other conditions that might impact this).
(The PDF ProCSS add-on uses a PDF rendering engine from Antenna House, for which there is an additional charge for OnPremises users.)
If the initial HTML5 output was underwhelming, Author-it's new Honeycomb format is incredibly powerful and a great asset for any organization that needs to publish eLearning content. With this exciting web based training (WBT) output, users can now capitalize on the benefits of their single sourcing content management system applied to eLearning, assessments and mobile learning. Honeycomb's SCORM configuration can be configured to meet your LMS requirements.
Honeycomb includes a choice of several templates for presentations, assessments and instructional content.
Let us tell you more about the features and how we can help you make use of them now.
