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Subject:Winhelp for newbies WAS Help tool and training From:John Cornellier <cornelli -at- CLAMART -dot- SRPC -dot- SLB -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 1 Jul 1998 19:38:33 +0200
Following is a potted guide to WinHelp for newbies.
When you create Windows help, you create HLP files. When a user calls on
help, your HLP file is displayed in the Microsoft Help Viewer (winhelp.exe).
The way you create HLP files is: you take an RTF file & an HPJ file, bung
'em in one end of the Windows Help Compiler, and out the other end comes
the compiled HLP file.
The RTF file contains the text of your topics. You can write the RTF in any
WP capable of exporting to Rich Text Format. Word will do. The HPJ (Help
ProJect) file (sort of an INI file for the compiler) is a text file you can
edit with notepad. The Windows Help Compiler is an EXE file. You can get it
with MS's freeware HAT called Help Workshop. Help Workshop includes a
comprehensive help file explaining how to create the RTF, the HPJ, and how
to compile them.
If you're a beginner, you use the HAT to insulate you from the HPJ / RTF
and the compiler. But as Mike Wing et al said, you're eventually going to
have to troubleshoot the RTF and HPJ files, so you might as well learn
about them sooner rather than later.
Your project was started in DocTo Help. I suggest that if you don't want /
need to become a help expert, the short-term answer may be to get a free
evaluation copy of DocToHelp at http://www.wextech.com/ and use it to get
the project out the door. Wextech has free tech support in the form of a
mailing list.
The main HATs are RoboHelp, Doc2, Forehelp, and HDK. All good, each
different. Typically a help developer will use these HATs just to get the
RTF file produced quickly, then tweak the compiling in notepad.
Remember: all the HAT does is produce an RTF and an HPJ and then run them
through the compiler. There is nothing proprietary to the HATs about the
RTF and HPJ.
RoboHelp's handing out free evaluation CDs. Don't know if they contain
working version.
You should also know that Microsoft is no longer supporting (developing /
fixing bugs in) Winhelp. Windows 98 will be delivered with HTML help,
although how help developers will deliver this is unclear. Win98 will still
display winhelp, and I suspect it'll be around for some time to come.
HTH and sorry about all the abbreviations, write me if you have any questions.
John Cornellier, tech writer, Paris. mailto:cornelli -at- clamart -dot- srpc -dot- slb -dot- com
