Microsoft Office 2000/Visual Basic Programmer's Guide

Creating a Help File to Use with an Office Solution

Office 2000 applications can display standard Help topics authored and compiled by using either HTML Help (.chm) or WinHelp 4.0 (.hlp). Context-sensitive Help for Office 2000 solutions must be authored by using WinHelp 4.0. You can download the tools required to author and compile both HTML Help and WinHelp 4.0 from the following locations:

• To download and install the tools used to create HTML Help files, go to the HTML Help Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/htmlhelp/default.asp.
  
  
• To download and install Microsoft Help Workshop, used to create WinHelp 4.0 files, go to the Microsoft Technical Support Web site at http://support.microsoft.com/download/support/mslfiles/hcwsetup.exe.

Jumping from a WinHelp Topic to an HTML Help Topic

Because Office 2000 applications require you to use WinHelp 4.0 topics to author context-sensitive Help, you may sometimes need to jump from a WinHelp 4.0 topic to an HTML Help topic. You author a jump from any WinHelp 4.0 topic to an HTML Help topic by using the ExecFile macro. For example, a jump in a WinHelp 4.0 file that is formatted like the following example opens the first page in the compiled HTML Help file that is installed for Internet Explorer 4.0 or later:

The first argument passed to the ExecFile macro, hh, refers to the program to run, Hh.exe, the HTML Help Viewer. The second argument is the URL to open a page in a .chm file as described in "Using a URL to Open a Page in a Compiled HTML Help File" later in this chapter.