Writing and formatting text

For more detailed information on formatting text see Text Formatting and Styles.

The editor tabs:

The Help & Manual editor has two or three tabs, depending on the version of Help & Manual you are using:

•	The Page Editor tab is where you edit the content of your topic files. This is basically just like a normal word processor. You can enter text, copy and paste, apply styles, insert images etc. You can also use special help authoring features that a word processor does not have.

•	The tab provides access to settings that are saved separately for each individual topic, including index keywords assigned to topics.

•	The XML Source tab (Professional version only) allows you to view and edit the XML source code of your topic. If you don't understand what you see here just ignore it!

The topic header box:

The box above the main editor area contains the topic header. This corresponds to the header of topics in help files and supplies the titles of topics for PDF and other printed formats. By default the header box contains the same text as the topic caption in the Table of Contents but you can add additional text if you like. You can also insert graphics, hyperlinks etc.

The editing and formatting tools are grouped in the Write tab of the Ribbon. Many of these tools can also be selected with keyboard shortcuts. Select Program Options in the View tab of the Ribbon to view and change all available keyboard shortcuts.

Applying formatting and copying, cutting and pasting work in the same way as in any modern word processor.

•	To format existing text manually you must first select it and then apply the formatting, using a formatting tool or a style.

•	If you select a formatting tool without selecting text (font, bold, underline, color, background color etc.) it will apply from the cursor position onwards if you continue typing.

•	To delete the word to the left of the editing cursor press Ctrl+Backspace.

•	Use the Format Painter tool in the Clipboard group (Write and Paste tabs) to copy formatting. The Format Painter works in the same way as similar tools in word processors. Click once to select and use once, double-click for multiple use, click again or Escape key to turn off.

•	See Text Formatting and Styles for detailed information on formatting text and using styles.

You can switch the editor display to show the styles definitions for screen output (electronic help files) and print output (PDF, RTF and printed manuals). You can also switch the editor's basic font sizes to emulate Windows' "large fonts" and "small fonts" settings to check how your help will look on users' systems with these settings.

Note that different styles will only be displayed if you have actually defined different style settings for screen and print output!

Display buttons in the status bar:

See Help and print styles for more information on using different style sets for different output formats.

Sometimes you want to make sure that text will not be changed or translated, particularly when you are working on a project in a team.

•	Select the text you want to protect, then click on the Protect Text tool in Write > Font.

The text will be displayed with shading in the editor to show that it is protected. In the XML file it will also be tagged with a translate="false" attribute to inform the translator that you do not want it to be translated.

Go to hyperlink:	Hold down Ctrl and click on the link (double-clicking on links opens the link editing dialog).
Word left/right:	Ctrl+Cursor Left/Right
Next/previous topic:	Ctrl+Cursor Up/Down
Other nav. controls:	PgUp, PgDown, Ctrl+Home, Ctrl+End
Edit history:	The buttons in the Quick Access Toolbar navigate through the sequence of topics you have edited in the current session.
Keyboard shortcuts:	Select Program Options in the View tab for a full list of all available keyboard shortcuts. You can change the shortcuts and assign your own shortcuts to most of Help & Manual's functions.
Display paragraph marks:	Click on the tool in Write > Paragraph or select Program Options in the View tab and activate Display paragraph and text marks in the Editor tab.
Preview Windows large/small fonts settings:	Click on the 96/120 DPI button in the status bar at the bottom of the program window to emulate Windows' small and large font modes in the editor. This is useful for making sure that your layouts will work correctly with both settings.
Show Screen/Print styles in the editor:	Click on the Screen/Print button in the status bar at the bottom of the program window to switch between the style definitions for screen output (electronic help files) and print style output (PDF, printed manuals, Word RTF). This will only show any changes if you have actually defined different styles for screen and print output.

This tab is only available in the Professional version of Help & Manual and it is designed for advanced users only.

Please don't edit anything in this tab unless you have plenty of experience in XML editing and understand all the code. XML syntax is very strict and unlike HTML not even a single mistake in the code is permitted!

You can find a detailed reference to the Help & Manual XML syntax in the Helpman_XML_ref.chm file in the Help & Manual program directory.