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 Office Assistant in Microsoft Office or 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 RTFM.