A Help file is made up of distinct units of information called topics. A topic in a Help file is similar to a page in a word-processing document. Each topic focuses on a specific piece of information such as a concept, a step-by-step procedure, a command summary, an illustrative graphic, a keyboard table, an example, or any other unit of information that you define. A topic can include text or graphics or both text and graphics. By definition topics are an arbitrary length. Either the content itself or the Help author determines the length of a particular topic. The same is true of Help files. Since a Help file is made up of all the topics it contains, its size is determined wholly by the number of topics in it.
The first topic that appears when the user opens a Help file is the Contents topic, which acts as a table of contents for the Help file. It may also serve as the home screen from which all other topics or topic categories are accessed. The user can return to the Contents topic by choosing the Contents button (the first button on the Windows Help button bar). Figure 2.1 shows the Contents topic for the sample Help file—PLACEHOLDER.
Note:
You can view the sample application by clicking the PLACEHOLDER icon or by running Windows Help and opening the PLACEHOLDER.HLP file.
If the information in a Help topic doesn’t fit in the current window, you can use the scroll bars or use the UP ARROW, DOWN ARROW, PAGE UP, or PAGE DOWN key to see the rest of the information.