Abstract: An authoring system for interactively generating and testing help systems preferably comprises a central processing unit (CPU), a display device, an input device, a data storage device and a memory. The memory further comprises a code generator, display routines, linking routines, indexing routines, a plurality of topic records, a plurality of table records and a plurality of graphic files. The present invention stores the information explaining the features and functionality of an application program in topic records. The authoring system of the present invention uses the topic records for organization and for displaying the data to the user. The CPU under direction of routines in the memory displays the contents of each topic record using the graphic files, and creates, updates and deletes topic records. The display routines are also used in conjunction with test routines to display the data as it will be presented by the help system during operation.