The topic is the basic unit of information in a Help file; all information is displayed in topics. A topic can include text, graphics, hypertext links, and custom controls. Because their use varies, topics can range in size from short examples containing a single picture or word to lengthy explanations involving several graphics and hundreds of words. Figure 6.1 shows a topic from the sample Help file.
Topics are stored in topic files, which contain one or more topics. How you organize the topics within topic files depends on your own work habits and the type of information contained in the topics. At the extreme, you can place all the topics in one large topic file, or you can create a separate topic file for each topic in the Help project. For most projects, it is probably best to avoid either extreme and organize the topics so that they reflect the overall organization of your Help file. For example, if you create a simple Help system with three kinds of information, you might want to create three topic files, one for each information category.
Just remember that the way you organize topics within the topic file does not affect how a user views the topics. The organization that the user sees when using the Help file is something you build into the Help file using authoring features. For example, you can use any of the following Help features to organize the presentation of topics in your Help file.
| Help feature | Description |
| Hypertext links | Let you connect any two topics together so that users can “jump” from topic to topic following a particular line of interest. This is the primary method you use to organize the Help topics in a Help file. |
| Browse sequences | Let you organize a number of topics into a linear sequence that users can “browse” the same way they flip through pages in a printed book. |
| Keyword search | Lets you assign keywords to topics so that users can search for a particular item and access information directly without following a hierarchical path. |