Choosing the right type of help file

Right now, I'm finishing up a new application. That means it's time to write help docs. It's always been hard for me to decide which format of help file. I talked to Gryph and did some research online. Here's a list of the formats I considered, and some pros and cons:

Microsoft Compiled Help Files

Pros:

• Very Powerful for the User - Can access any page in the help document from one place. Built-in search. Built-in navigation (links, forward, back).
• Comes with most Windows installations.
• Very quick to write

Cons:

• Not available on non-Windows installations.

Rich-Text Format

Pros:

• Very quick to write
• An editor that reads RTF comes with almost every OS.

Cons:

• No links.
• No navigation, table of contents, etc. This is a big problem for anything besides a small help file, as the user must scroll through a lot of information.

Microsoft Word Document

Pros:

• Very quick to write.
• Has some useful navigation tools: page links, easy to print.
• Available on many operating systems.

Cons:

• Many installations will not have an application that reads .doc format already installed.

HTML

Pros:

• Can be very quick to write.
• Pretty Powerful - Navigation and links are available without too much work. With more time, you can set up some complex, helpful features (table of contents, video).
• Almost any installation will be able to read this without having to install any new apps.
• Easy to print.

Cons:

• Many default web browsers are big, bulky applications that take a while to open up.

So that's what I found. I ended up going with HTML because it's easy to print, and you can view it on any machine, and it's pretty powerful, and Google Docs makes it easy to write. Just create a doc, with images and links, and you can export it as HTML. Here's a screenshot:

What do you prefer to use (as a user or doc writer)?

     --AaronO