--- title: Author-It Reviews meta\_title: 'Author-It Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta\_description: Filter 40 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Author-It works for a business like yours. aggregate\_rating: rating\_value: 4.0 review\_count: 40 scale: '5' date\_modified: '2026-08-08' parent\_category: name: Content Management url: https://www.g2.com/categories/content-management --- # Author-It Reviews & Product Details Claimed ###### Profile Status This profile is currently managed by Author-It but has limited features. Are you part of the Author-It team? [Upgrade your plan](https://my.g2.com/author-it/upgrade?utm_campaign=s3&utm_medium=claim-popup&utm_source=g2) to enhance your branding and engage with visitors to your profile! Create. Collaborate. Manage. Reuse. Translate. Publish. All on one platform. Author-it is a true and complete Component Content Management System (CCMS) for the creation, management, localization, and publishing of a wide variety of information products. Single sourcing is the core of Author-it, and with loads of functionality like multi-channel publishing, variant management, review and approval workflows, and authoring assistance, we offer a collaborative solution capable of dealing with the needs of any organization, from SMBs to Enterprise. Unlike DITA and XML solutions, Author-it makes importing and authoring content a snap. And with no coding expertise required, collaborating in real time with SMEs and non-technical writers breaks down silos and increases productivity. Manage large content libraries easily without losing control, create modern, personalized courses, reuse and translate content without leaving the platform, and publish to multiple outputs, including HTML5, mobile, PDF, print and more. Save time and eliminate content chaos with Author-it. * * * Seller [Author-It Software Corporation](https://www.g2.com/sellers/author-it-software-corporation) Discussions [Author-It Community](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/discuss) Languages Supported German, English, French, Dutch Solution Type All-in-One Overview by Ryanne Rosenlund Show More ## Value at a Glance Averages based on real user reviews. ### Time to Implement 3 months ### Return on Investment 20 months [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/pricing) ## Top-Rated Alternatives [ ![MadCap Flare](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "MadCap Flare") MadCap Flare 4.4/5(491) ](https://www.g2.com/products/madcap-flare/reviews) [ ![Heretto](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Heretto") Heretto 4.1/5(39) ](https://www.g2.com/products/heretto/reviews) [ ![Paligo](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Paligo") Paligo 4.6/5(57) ](https://www.g2.com/products/paligo/reviews) [ View All Alternatives ](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/competitors/alternatives) ## User Insights Average based on 40 real user reviews. Implementation Time 3 months Perceived Cost $$$$$ [Log in to unlock pricing and user insights](/login) ![Verified User in Machinery](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Machinery") IM Verified User in Machinery Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 9/4/2020 "Author-it is giving me help in manuals management" 4/5 What do you like best about Author-It? Author gives me great help in managing documentation. It helps me in managing the translations of my manuals. With few click i have the documents ready to publish in PDF format. I use this cloud every day. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? I found some difficulties and problems at the beginning. The layout is not easier and the manuals in PDF format are too big. When i insert images is a slow process and is not possible manage the jpg or png inside the cloud. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Author-It: I recommend the use of Author-it to anyone who has to manage a lot of translations of their documents. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? The great benefits are the reuse of the contents and an easy a very fast process for sending documents for translation in all languages of the world Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller BS Bernhard S. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4/29/2020 "Good tool for documentation in a collaborative environment" 5/5 What do you like best about Author-It? We are using the On Premises version. We can organize our work inside of Author-it using release sates and internal comments. Once you have setup your output formats you can fully conentrate on your content. When you have understood the concept of Author-it, then you have a very flexible and powerful tool. For writers or reviewers only, it is easy to learn and they like it. Author-it has a quick and competent support. It is very stable we had since nearly 20 years of use no problems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? The cloud version is too expensive. The handling of tables. A table object would be very helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Author-It: For administrators it is important to really understand the concepts. Users should forget about wysiwyg and should trust that Author-it will give them the correct output. Just concentrate on the content and use the correct styles. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? We are writing software documentations for various customers. Using Author-it we can manage all our customers in one tool. We can work together in the same projects. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller ![Verified User in Machinery](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Machinery") UM Verified User in Machinery Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 3/24/2020 "Great program" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Author-It? A learning curve but their training is great. Best is the ability to reuse text. if you are writing a new document that is 80% like another product, your work is 80% done. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? We output to MSWord and then make a PDF. We have to do the page breaks manually. The parts component is added in Word before making the PDF. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Author-It: Great program Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? if you are writing a new document that is 80% like another product, your work is 80% done. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 12/15/2020 Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Machinery](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Machinery") IM Verified User in Machinery Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 3/3/2020 "User Friendly Component Content Management System (Author-it)" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Author-It? The easy of use of Author-it for people that have little understanding of writing and publication. For example we have a mechanic from our assembly line writing assembly instructions. I take him only four sessions of approximately 2 hours and he was up and running. It took me as an experience Author-it user approximately one week to setup the work environment, templates and publication process so that it was easy to use for non-experienced-writers. It is easy to create user-groups and limit what every user sees when working with Author-it. We have roles for Operator Manuals, Marketing Information and Factory Instructions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? As an administrator I see everything in the system and that is sometimes a bit annoying, for example when I need to write content for operator manuals. If I only want to see operator information I have to switch of views manually. That is however only my problem, all other users have been specified and see only the information that is relevant for their tasks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? Change of out machine documentation was uncontrolled, basically a previous manual was copied and modified for a newer machine by the Engineering department. There was no revision and complete manuals where re-translated each time a language was required. The main benefits for us at this time are: - Content exists once and translated once (reduction of translation costs). - New developments are documented when developed, no information is copied. - Because of the modular approach in Author-it, we are able to publish customer specific manuals. (Instead of manuals that contain all possibilities the customer gets manuals with the possibilities he purchased.) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller JW Jody W. Documentation Specialist Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 8/8/2019 "Great content management, could be better on the publishing side" 4/5 What do you like best about Author-It? Author-It is superior when it comes to managing large amounts of complex, single-sourced content. It easily handles variations to content, and the UI is intuitive. I know that whatever content-management challenges that come up, Author-It will handle them. The support I receive from the Service Desk is second-to-none. They get back to you quickly, and genuinely care about your question or issue. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? First, Author-It needs to offer more online formats to publish out to. At the time of writing (August 2019) they offer mostly legacy formats like WebHelp and HTML Help. I have had to heavily customise my CSS to improve the look and feel and behaviour of my WebHelp output. But I would like to see HTML5 formats on offer soon. I want to easily be able to publish modern, responsive HTML5 content. I want my help to have decent search, and I want to be able to embed metadata inside each content object. I want it to look less like the early 2000s. I know that the company is working hard to make this possible, so I look forward to seeing what they offer in the next 12 months. Second, there is a huge learning curve for new users. Honestly, I almost had a breakdown learning it. The configuration and relationship between the foundation objects that make the whole thing wor is complex. I fully document all of my config wherever I implement the system so I can remember what the hell it all means. Third, the output to MS Word is OK but requires quite a bit of mop-up to make your printed output look good. I like my documents to look perfect so if you can live with a little weirdness, then you might not think this is a big deal. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Author-It: The complex setup is worth it. The content management aspect of Author-It is fantastic. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? Effective content re-use, efficient and secure management of knowledge assets, ability to publish to online and print formats. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller AS Arnold S. Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 5/12/2020 "A great CMS to make managing all my content much easier" 5/5 What do you like best about Author-It? no more searching for files or images, quick finds trough locate option Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? No more endless debates about why old recently updated content came back in other manuals dye to copy/paste. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? Building and managing technical manuals. Nice ability to single source chapters, topics and images. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller MR Marie R. Owner Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 9/13/2019 "Software documantation and Localising with Author-IT" 5/5 What do you like best about Author-It? Heather :-) and the whole team also in Europe. Always helpful and friendly. Author-it with Localise is a powerful Single-Source-Publishing software for all our belongings: Creating Help systems and pdf documentation, importing Release Notes from word and creating an extra help system for Release Notes, Preparing translations into several languages with localise and exporting them to/importing them from out Translation Memory System and monitoring the statuses by using release states. Because we are specialised ware documentation we especially like the object-oriented workflow as it is also in development tools. Also that the data is hold in SQL makes the work effective and helps to quickly find existing content and last but not least makes data backup easy. Teamwork is also great because of the object-oriented workflow. It is great that Paul Trotter is back! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? The handling of tables is tricky and could be smoother. And: too many mouse clicks are needed. We would appreciate a better keyboard using. What we sometimes miss is the possibility to check out projects and edit them offline and check them in again. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? No problems but a great all-in-one workflow for all our needs as described beforehand. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller ![Verified User in Automotive](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Automotive") UA Verified User in Automotive Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 8/2/2019 "Author-it is giving me a great help in document management" 4/5 What do you like best about Author-It? Author gives me great help in managing and speeding up the management of translations of my documents. In a few steps I have the complete documents ready to send. I found the advice that i read in the author community that I read often very useful. I would like to have a lighter author manual for entry level users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? I noticed some difficulties especially at the beginning. I would like some features to be added to get better and easier layout. I hope that a new version with some new features will be released soon. The author-it manual is too big, sometimes I find it difficult to find the sections that can help me. Inserting images is a somewhat slow procedure and it is necessary to have another software to manage them. During the layout of my documents I sometimes have to change or move some parts of the documents to get a good final layout. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Author-It: Author-IT is a great way to create documentation. Initially I found some difficulties because it is different from the systems used in the past by me, but later I started working faster. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? Using Author-it I have all my documents in one place and easily accessible. In a single interface I have all the tools for drafting documents and sending them to translation. I believe this is a great advantage over other systems. Moreover in case of problems the Author-it community is always very prepared to available and has quickly solved my problems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 8/9/2019 Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller ![Verified User in Computer Software](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Computer Software") AC Verified User in Computer Software Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 8/7/2019 "Complex, but incredibly powerful" 4/5 What do you like best about Author-It? AIT allowed us to grow from 1 help system and 20 paper manuals to multiple help systems (in a variety of flavors) and well over 100 paper manuals. Single-sourcing, reuse, variants, and release states allow us to work smarter, not harder, as we keep up with release updates. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? AIT has a steep learning curve. As I've trained others on using it, I realize that much of my ability to navigate it, migrate our former Robohelp content, and get templates and such working smoothly is because of my background in computer science. Intuitively understanding copies versus instances of objects, templates, versioning, and object-oriented concepts was critical in setting things up in an effective way. I would love for AIT to provide more training and more help providing and/or setting up templates initially. I would also love for AIT to better support single-sourcing. I'd love for it to automatically flag duplicate content and offer to merge it. I would love the ability to merge identical topics or graphics. Xtend does the exact opposite--it encourages more duplication, not less. I want the inverse of Xtend--"Hey, you're typing a definition of this field that's exactly the same as this other field. Would you like to make this an embedded topic and use it both places?" YES! This increases the ability to maintain documentation effectively, keeps our database smaller, makes our publish time smaller, and makes the output files smaller. Wins all around. I would also love for Honeycomb to be embedded/enabled at no extra cost. This ties in to the single-sourcing. Our company will not pay for such a price hike, but man, could we use it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Author-It: If you are a small department needing to crank out and maintain an extensive library of documentation, AIT is a great solution. You will need someone with an understanding of single-sourcing concepts, data management, information architecture, and the specific needs of your department to get things set up properly and running well. However, the initial sharp learning curve is worth it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? In Robohelp, as a lone technical writer, if a change was made to one of our main screens, I had to change it in our help system and separately in about 20 paper manuals. There was no reuse of content. There was no ability to make the change in ONE place and have it automatically update in all of the relevant areas. With AIT, and with our efficient setup and intentional reuse of topics and graphics, updating our documentation is far easier, which means that we can maintain more documents and provide far more for our customers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller AK Antti K. Documentation Manager Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 8/7/2019 "Cloud version is expensive and not possible to tailor for customer needs." 2/5 What do you like best about Author-It? Easy to write and re-use topics. Possibilities to maintain user rights. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Author-It? Not possible to use effectively in multilingual company. We don't get benefits of re-using topics between different branch offices because we have multiple source languages. System doesn't recognize for example Chinese as same language if it has been translated from different source languages (translation paths). There are at least 4 different platforms (files, localize, ...) in the one program. And those are not made with the same logic. ProCSS publishing was excepted to solve many publishing problems but it is quite complex to configure and some functions are impossible to implement. Proper manual for ProCSS commands is missing. There is no user right limits in Files. That is a massive risk to loose everything. There seems to be mystic publishing problems that AIT support doesn't admit. Document sharing is missing from cloud version. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Author-It: Think twice. :) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Author-It solving and how is that benefiting you? It has given more headache to administrator than our old system. Old systems looks now better than in the past. Those were not so bad as we thought. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite on behalf of seller ## Questions about Author-It? Ask real users or explore answers from the community Get practical answers, real workflows, and honest pros and cons from the G2 community or share your insights. [ Ask about Author-It ](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/discussions/new) GU Guest User What is Author-It used for? 0 Upvotes 0 [ Join the conversation ](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-author-it-used-for) MR Marie Roemer • Last activity over 6 years ago Can I and if yes how create training tutorials? 1 Upvote 1 [ Join the conversation ](https://www.g2.com/discussions/16122-can-i-and-if-yes-how-create-training-tutorials) [ View all Discussions ](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/discuss) ## Pricing Insights Averages based on real user reviews. ### Time to Implement 3 months ### Return on Investment 20 months ### Perceived Cost $$$$$ [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/pricing) Author-It Comparisons ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_d61ecfdb9b46ed822c4cfff4611b92eb/madcap-flare.png "Product Avatar Image") MadCap Flare 4.4/5(491) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/author-it-vs-madcap-flare) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_aabb2b912c3c7aca7646b1dac06f52ee/paligo.png "Product Avatar Image") Paligo 4.6/5(57) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/author-it-vs-paligo) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_82d812f909bc367f5a46216c73c24ef5/heretto.png "Product Avatar Image") Heretto 4.1/5(39) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/author-it-vs-heretto) ##### ##### Author-It Features Creation Features XML Authoring Workflow Management Collaborative Review Software Model On-Premise Cloud-based [ View More Features ](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/features) ##### Categories on G2 [Course Authoring](https://www.g2.com/categories/course-authoring)[Help Authoring Tool (HAT)](https://www.g2.com/categories/help-authoring-tool-hat)[Component Content Management Systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/component-content-management-systems) ##### Explore More [Top-rated purchasing apps for medium-sized companies](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-are-the-top-rated-purchasing-apps-for-medium-sized-companies)[What is the top-rated invoice management solution for enterprises?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-top-rated-invoice-management-solution-for-enterprises)[What are the most popular idea management tools that companies actually use to crowdsource and evaluate ideas from their own staff?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-are-the-most-popular-idea-management-tools-that-companies-actually-use-to-crowdsource-and-evaluate-ideas-from-their-own-staff) [Checkr vs HireRight for a mid-size company that needs reliable background screening with a clean candidate experience and solid ATS integration?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/checkr-vs-hireright-for-a-mid-size-company-that-needs-reliable-background-screening-with-a-clean-candidate-experience-and-solid-ats-integration%20)[Which Autodesk Construction Cloud integration partners offer customisable access permissions and workflow settings for large multi-discipline project teams?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/which-autodesk-construction-cloud-integration-partners-offer-customisable-access-permissions-and-workflow-settings-for-large-multi-discipline-project-teams)[Pros and Cons Details](https://www.g2.com/products/author-it/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons) [Show MoreShow Less](javascript:void(0);)