So far we have been talking about creating individual topics. That’s certainly a necessary first step, but it isn’t sufficient to create a Help file because unless you create links between those topics, users have no way to access the information. Unlike books, Help files don’t have physical pages users can turn. They rely instead on links, the structural and navigational connections between topics. Links determine which topics are connected to each other and the relationship between connected topics. For example, a link may determine that Topic B is subordinate to Topic A or that Topic C is cross-referenced from Topic A.
Linking information together electronically is what makes normal text into hypertext. Normal text is what we read in most printed materials: newspapers, magazines, novels, brochures, catalogs, instruction manuals, and so on. It is structured sequentially so that people read one page after another. Hypertext simply means that you can create links between the electronic pages (topics) in such a way that users can read the material nonsequentially, or in any order they choose. If the hypertext is well-made, they should be able to choose links according to the associations they form when they read the information. In Windows Help, this notion of hypertext is the basis for all Help files.
This chapter explains how to create links between topics and topic files. It also explains how to create hot spots that run Help macros and activate pop-up windows.