Creating topics from other sources

In addition to creating new topics into which you enter new content you can also create TOC entries that display content from other sources when the user clicks on the TOC entry.

You can create TOC entries that link to web pages or to topics in other help files that are available when the user views the help.

You can also insert entire Help & Manual projects in your TOC. When you publish your project the external projects are merged with the main project.

Productivity Tip

You can also use Snippets to insert topics and XML files from other sources into existing topics. Snippets can be inserted as editable copies or linked to the source files so that they update automatically when the sources are edited.

This option does not create a topic file. Instead, it creates a TOC entry that links to a topic in an external help file, which can be either a Winhelp .hlp file or a HTML Help .chm file. This only works in Winhelp and HTML Help output! Such topics will be empty in other output formats and should be excluded from those formats with conditional output options.

1.	Select an Add Topic option to create a new topic.

2.	In the Insert New Topic dialog select the Jump to External Help option.

3.	Use the Browse button in the Help File: field to navigate to the external help file. You can select topics Help & Manual projects or in compiled .chm or .hlp files. (Type .hlp or .chm in the File name: field of the Open dialog to display these files.)

4.	Then use the Browse button in the Topic ID: field to select the ID of the topic you want to link to.

5.	Then click on OK to create the new topic.

The .chm or .hlp help file containing the topic you link to must be present in the same directory as the help file containing the link, otherwise the topic will not be displayed. You can only link between the same types of help files – you cannot link to a .hlp file from a .chm file or vice-versa!

This method only works in HTML-based output formats. You cannot include web pages in your help in Winhelp or PDF, for example.

1.	Select an Add Topic option to create a new topic.

2.	In the Insert New Topic dialog select the Web Link option.

3.	Enter the URL of the web page in the Target Address: field. See Insert New Topic for details on the available settings.

You must enter a fully-qualified URL including the http:// protocol identifier. For example, http://www.ec.software.com/ will work but www.ec-software.com will not work.

4.	Click on OK to create the new topic. The web page will only be displayed in your published output and only when you have an active connection to the Internet.

In addition to topics you can also insert entire Help & Manual projects in the TOC, thus merging the two projects.

1.	Select an Add Topic option to create a new topic.

2.	Select Include Help Project in the Insert New Topic dialog and select the project you want to insert.

Merge content on publishing: If you select this mode the external project's contents will be displayed in the TOC of the current project and can be edited directly. Merged projects are still stored externally and their topics are identified by small green icon in the TOC.

Merge content at runtime: This is for HTML Help and Winhelp only and just inserts a placeholder in the TOC. The projects must be edited and published separately and are only merged when the user views them if the help files are all present in the same folder.

Publishing merged projects:

In most output formats the projects will be merged into one large help system when you publish your output. In HTML Help and Winhelp you can also create separate help files that are displayed in a single Table of Contents when the user opens the main help file. This makes it possible to create different versions of your help just by including or excluding help files in your distribution package.

See Working with Modular Help Systems for full details.