Merging Help Files at Run Time

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Microsoft Corporation

Updated June 10, 1999

When you merge help files, information from the index and full-text search of multiple compiled help (.chm) files is combined at run time. A unified index and full-text search information appears in the Navigation pane of the Help Viewer.

To combine the tables of contents from multiple help files, you need to link to the contents files that need to be merged.

This is a very useful feature when you need to merge multiple help files that are designed as components of a larger help system. For example, the Professional edition of a software product might contain four programs, each with a separate help file; while the Student edition of the same product might contain only two programs and related help files.

When a help author creates a project file that specifies which files to merge at run time, the help compiler will find and merge only those files on a user's computer.

There are special considerations when linking between merged help files.