title: Generate HTML / Help files from VS 2010 C# XML documentation
body: <p>I am looking for a good tool creating HTML / Help files from my VS2010 XML documentation. I have found some commercial tools, such as</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="http://www.winnershtriangle.com/vb-net-xml-comments/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">.Net documentation tool</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://www.helixoft.com/vsdocman/overview.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VSDocman</a></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I am sure there are more, I just list these two as examples. Also there are simple XSLT stylesheets around to convert the XML to HTML documentation.</p>
  
  <p>What are you using, e.g. is there a free tool to do the conversion, maybe as Add-In.
  Just to clarify, basically I have found two types of tools:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>The ones converting the XML documentation file in different target formats, this is what I am looking for.</li>
  <li>Tools helping me to generate the XML documentation in the source code. This is not(!) what I am looking for.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Thanks for your help.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>The Sandcastle / SHFB combo works great. Thanks to all who helped.</p>
  
  <p>Some remarks:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>NDoc seems to be outdated, last updates are from 2005. That's why I have skipped this.</li>
  <li>A similar thread, also very detailed, can be found here: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3082044/how-to-turn-c-xml-doc-comments-into-something-useful">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3082044/how-to-turn-c-xml-doc-comments-into-something-useful</a> Thanks for the hint!</li>
  <li>There are some sources for Sandcastle, the latest version I have found is located here: <a href="http://sandcastle.codeplex.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://sandcastle.codeplex.com/</a></li>
  <li>In order to generate <code>MsHelp2</code> I had to install VS 2008 SDK containing <code>hscomp.exe</code>. There is a version 1.0 and 1.1, as far as I could figure it out version 1.0 contains the compiler. See <a href="http://www.helixoft.com/vsdocman-faqs/where-can-i-download-hxcompexe.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Helixsoft</a> and <a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/devdocs/thread/d707131b-7c5f-4f50-8685-3ebd81e24867" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Social MSDN</a> for some details.</li>
  <li>In my case the generated WebHelp does not work correctly with Chrome. It always reloads the index.html page.</li>
  <li>The <a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/devdocs/thread/6766bd99-cd63-41fd-9f03-650ec7eddf3d/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">topic here</a> shows how to add namespace infos into sandcastle documentation.</li>
  <li>Update as of Nov 2012: For smaller projects I am using <a href="http://www.doxygen.nl/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Doxygen</a> - I find it a little easier to configure.</li>
  </ol>