How to Create a User Manual + Top 5 Free Manual Creator Tools

During my 11+ years in customer service and knowledge management, I’ve seen teams waste weeks formatting Word docs and juggling screenshots, only to end up with something users ignore.

What could’ve been a well-crafted user manual turns into a confusing, jargon-filled document. Where’s the gap? Do you really need a hefty budget or design software to build one? Nope!

You can easily use free manual creator software to create crystal-clear instructions, troubleshooting hacks, and helpful walkthroughs. 

In this blog, I’ll share some easy steps to create a user manual for free and share my top 5 best free online user manual creator software tools.

What Is a User Manual Creator?

For those new to the concept, user manual creator tools help users create user manuals or documentation for their products or services. They enable a user-friendly interface for writing, formatting, and organizing information and usually include user manual templates and customizable options to suit different needs.

It provides a structured approach, aids in content organization, and facilitates collaboration among team members. For example, a SaaS company offering a CRM tool can create a user manual to walk users through account setup, import contacts from Excel, customize pipelines, and resolve common errors.

Let me show you a real-life example of how companies can optimize help content creation with an online user manual creator platform:

Why Use a Free User Manual Creator Tool Instead of Writing Manuals Manually?

Although creating user manuals manually may seem straightforward, it’s often time-consuming, disorganized, and difficult to scale.

Free user manual creator tools offer an innovative, more efficient way to build professional, easy-to-navigate manuals without the upfront cost.

1. Saves Costs & Offers Price Flexibility

Free manual creator tools allow individuals and small teams to create professional documentation without spending on software licenses or designers.

Many tools offer a Forever Free Plan with flexible upgrades as your needs grow, so you only pay when you’re ready.

2. Speeds Up Documentation

These tools include ready-to-use templates, pre-formatted sections, and drag-and-drop builders that drastically reduce setup time.

You can focus on writing helpful content instead of formatting headers or aligning tables.

3. Brings Consistency to Every Manual

It enables uniform styles, typography, and layout rules, ensuring a consistent user experience across all sections.

This enhances readability and makes your documentation look more credible.

4. Keeps Content Structured & Searchable

Free user manual tools often offer table of contents builders, step-by-step structuring, and topic-based layouts.

These features help readers navigate information quickly and logically, even in long manuals.

5. Enables Seamless Team Collaboration

Most free platforms support real-time editing, internal comments, and change tracking, allowing multiple users to work on a manual simultaneously.

This eliminates version confusion and improves documentation quality through cross-team collaboration.

6. Makes Updates Easy & Efficient

You don’t need to rewrite the whole manual when product features change.

A free manual creator lets you update the affected sections, saving time while keeping content updated.

How to Create a User Manual with a Free Manual Creator 

Curious how to create a user manual without spending a cent? Let me walk you through the steps using ProProfs Knowledge Base as an example.

1. Pick a Template or Start from Scratch

The first thing you’ll want to do is pick a structure for your manual.

Most free manual creators offer a range of professionally designed templates—whether you need a Quick Start Guide, a Troubleshooting Manual, a Setup Guide, or something else. 

Templates are already organized into sections with placeholders for your content, making it much easier to start.

If you feel creative, skip the templates and start from a blank page. This gives you complete freedom to structure everything your way. Follow these steps:

• After you have logged in, go to Sites and click on + Create New. From the dialog box that opens, choose New Site
• After you’ve picked a template, set up your site, and your new help site/software user manual is ready.

2. Customize Your Manual

Once you have your base structure, it’s time to make the manual reflect your brand and your audience’s needs.

You can easily add your company logo, change fonts and colors to match your branding, and rearrange categories or sections based on how users will navigate your content.

Here’s a quick video guide that walks through how to design a beautiful user manual:

3. Import Your Existing Docs, PDFs, Videos & Presentations

If you already have user guides, training manuals, FAQs, or support docs saved elsewhere, don’t waste time rewriting them.

Simply import those files directly into your manual creator.

You can bulk upload documents like Word files, PDFs, or even HTML pages, saving hours of manual copy-pasting. Follow these steps:

• Click Settings in the header menu. From the dropdown menu, select the site where you wish to import the files
• Go to Import Sites > Import Files
• Check this help page if you want to prepare for the pre-import process.

After importing, you can reorganize, edit, or tag the articles to make everything easier for your users to find.

4. Create/Enhance Content with AI

Writing clear instructions can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re trying to cover much ground.

Here’s where AI Writer can be a game-changer.

You can draft full articles from scratch, rewrite complicated sections into simple language, fix grammar, and even generate SEO-friendly titles and descriptions. Follow these steps:

• Click on +New, select Page, and choose Article as the template
• Click on the AI icon at the top, choose Generate with AI, and select Create Content. 

Here’s an example of a prompt structure that I use to create any type of user manual quickly. You can tweak this prompt depending on your topic and other requirements.

Here’s what the result looks like: 

5. Add Visuals, Screenshots & Videos

People process visuals much faster than text.

Adding screenshots, short explainer videos, GIFs, and simple charts can make your manual 10x easier to follow.

You can embed images directly into your content, create visual walkthroughs for processes, and highlight key sections with visual callouts and icons. Follow these steps:

• Select the image(s) from the file location
• Drag the selected images and drop them in your browser’s ProProfs Knowledge Base editor tab
• Easily copy, paste, or resize images as per your choice.

6. Preview, Publish & Share

Before publishing, always preview your manual to check how it looks across different devices, such as desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Good manuals are responsive and easy to navigate, no matter where users view them. Follow these steps:

• Click the Edit icon on the home page. Before publishing your user manual, you can use the Preview function to see how it will look to your audience. 
• This lets you catch any formatting errors, inconsistencies, or broken links. Once satisfied, click Save & Done, and your manual will automatically be published.

Once you’re happy with it:

• Hit Publish
• Set visibility rules—make it public, restrict it internally, or password-protect certain sections
• Assign different permissions for authors, editors, and reviewers
• Enable intelligent search so users can instantly find answers
  Share the manual URL, export it as a PDF, extract page details in JSON/XML/CSV, or create a backup in HTML.

What Are Some Examples of Well-Written User Manuals? 

User manuals designed with a customer-centric approach and clear and concise guidance significantly enhance the user experience. 

Let’s look at some such examples.

1. ManageEngine

The ManageEngine Help Center features a prominent search bar for quick document retrieval and toggle links for easy topic navigation. 

Its user manual, ‘How Does End User Experience Monitoring (EUM) Work,’ employs straightforward language, relevant links, and helpful visuals to improve reader comprehension.

2. CDS Convert

CDS Export provides clear instructions for data conversion to PDF and JPG, highlighting the ‘Single page JPGs with Opticon’ option for specific folder structures. 

It also emphasizes the advantages of exporting data as EML files, including platform-specific attachments, text indexing, OCR, and customizable settings.

3. Airtable 

Airtable’s digital user guide exemplifies effective navigation with its clickable and accessible table of contents. 

Including a table of contents is highly beneficial, enabling users to locate needed information quickly. 

Organizing your guide into logical sections further enhances the user experience, especially for those using a physical copy.

Top 5 Best Free User Manual Creator Software & Tools in 2025

Now that we have discussed the steps to creating a user manual and its benefits and explored some examples, let’s look at some tools you can use to create one. 

1. ProProfs Knowledge Base – Best for Easily Creating Help Sites, Manuals & Private Knowledge Bases

I have been using ProProfs Knowledge Base to build structured, media-rich, and easy-to-navigate manuals with minimal effort. Its intuitive WYSIWYG editor and an AI Writer streamline content creation—from drafting articles to formatting and publishing. 

With this free manual creator tool, you can either write from scratch or import existing files. The platform supports written content, images, videos, and links to ensure users’ visually engaging and instructional experience.

Collaboration is seamless with internal commenting, which allows teams to brainstorm, give feedback, and refine content in real time. 

Pre-designed templates tailored for user manuals accelerate setup, while role-based workflows ensure everyone, from writers to reviewers, knows precisely what they need to do. 

What You Will Like:

• Forever Free Plan with all the premium features for small teams
• Professionally designed templates for step-by-step user manuals
• Smart analytics offer actionable insights into what’s working, what’s not, and what users are searching for
• Integrates smoothly with tools like ProProfs Live Chat and ProProfs Help Desk
• Role-based permissions for controlled editing and publishing.

Pricing: 

Forever Free Plan with all the premium features for small teams. Paid plan starts at $49/author/month.

G2 Rating: 4.6/5

2. Notion – Best for Creating Internal Wikis for Teams Sharing Informal Knowledge

The next free manual creator tool that I like Notion for its flexible, all-in-one workspace that doubles as a user manual creator. Its drag-and-drop interface and block-based structure make it easy to create clean, modular user manuals that adapt to various use cases—onboarding new users, walking through product features, or building searchable support guides.

Notion’s strength lies in its real-time collaboration and inline commenting, which make it simple for teams to co-author manuals and update content on the go. You can embed anything—from videos and images to Google Maps and code snippets—right inside your documentation, keeping everything interactive and user-friendly.

What You May Like:

• Allows teams to organize content into nested pages and link related sections easily
• The ability to create public-facing pages or keep docs private for internal teams
• Easily embed multimedia, tables, and code blocks inside manuals.

Pricing: 

A free plan is available. Paid plan starts at $10/member/month. 

G2 Rating: 4.7/5

3. Scribe – Best for Generating Visual How-To Guides

I have included Scribe in this list because it instantly turns everyday workflows into polished, step-by-step guides. It eliminates the manual effort of documenting processes by automatically capturing on-screen actions and converting them into visual instructions.

Its browser extension and desktop app allow users to generate detailed how-to manuals in seconds, complete with screenshots, annotations, and text descriptions. You can edit, rearrange, or enhance each step using Scribe’s intuitive interface.

What You May Like:

• No more screenshots, copy-pasting, or formatting—just click “record”
• Easily shareable links or embeddable guides for wikis and help docs
• Browser extension + desktop app for flexible usage
• The ability to embed guides into existing knowledge bases, wikis, or web pages.

Pricing: 

A free plan is available. Paid plan starts at $12/seat/month.

G2 Rating: 4.8/5

4. GitBook – Best for Creating Smart Technical Documentation

GitBook is another free manual creator platform that you can try as it is tailored for technical teams, mainly developers and product-focused organizations. With its clean interface and markdown-based editor, it’s built to help teams create structured, easy-to-navigate documentation that reads well and stays up to date.

The platform’s native Git integration allows teams to sync documentation with code, maintaining a single source of truth. You can organize your manual into pages and collections, embed media for clarity, and publish documentation privately for internal use or publicly for users.

What You May Like:

• Custom domains and branding support for external-facing manuals
• Smart navigation elements like nested sidebars and search filters
• API access for advanced customization and automation.

Pricing: 

A free plan is available. Paid plan starts at $65/site/month.

G2 rating: 4.7/5

5. Nuclino – Best for Fast Collaboration to Bring Knowledge, Docs & Projects Together in One Place

I have used Nuclino before to create user manuals without the complexity of traditional documentation tools. You can structure content using workspaces, nested pages, and visual boards, making navigation intuitive for writers and readers.

The platform’s seamless real-time editing and inline commenting features enable teams to co-author content like shared docs in Google Docs. Markdown support, media embedding, and easy linking between documents allow teams to create functional and user-friendly manuals.

What You May Like:

• Graph and list view options to visually organize manual content
• Version history and restore options for error-free collaboration
• Hotkey support for faster editing and formatting.

Pricing: 

A free plan is available. Paid plan starts at $6/user/month. 

How to Choose the Right Free Manual Creator Software

Choosing the right user manual creator platform is crucial for producing clear, effective documentation that enhances user understanding and reduces support needs.

Check out this insightful video to help you choose the right user manual software for your specific business needs:

Create User Manuals that Elevate Product Usage & Customer Experience

Creating a user manual doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive. With the right tools, you can deliver clear, professional, and helpful documentation that guides users, reduces support load, and enhances overall satisfaction. 

Whether you’re a startup building your first product guide, creating a user manual in Word, or a growing team looking to streamline documentation, the right software can save you time and elevate the user experience.

ProProfs Knowledge Base is a platform with transparent pricing and a Forever Free Plan. Its intuitive AI-powered editor, beautiful templates, and collaborative features help simplify the entire process—from drafting to publishing.