Software that provides assistance with a hardware device or with software. Help systems for Windows and the Mac have typically followed a common standard and used the same format (see
Windows help system), while auxiliary help systems such as the Wizards in Windows provide alternate methods, the latter taking you through a step-by-step solution (see
wizard). Today, many applications default to the Web and use HTML pages as their documentation. The Web affords a convenient way to keep documentation up-to-date for everyone. See
online help and
RTFM.