First part of tutorial
This is the first part of the tutorial

EasyHelp allows you to convert any Word document into a form that can be viewed as on-line help in Microsoft Windows. The way you do this is to 'mark-up' your document with topics and links.

Above you will see a heading line of text in green. This has already been 'marked up' as a topic. Marking a topic is easy. Simply position the cursor on the line of text that you want to be the topic heading and then click on the 'T' icon on the toolbar.


MarkingATopic
How to Mark a Topic

You are going to mark the heading line above 'How to Mark a Topic' as a topic. Do the following steps:

1.	Put the text cursor before the H of 'How to Mark a Topic' heading above.

2.	Now click on the 'T' icon on the toolbar. A dialog box will appear in the centre of your screen. Simply type in the phrase MarkingATopic (no spaces).  Then click on the OK button.

3.	That's it. You have created a topic called 'MarkingATopic'

Remember...  is for making a Topic.

Before we move on, let's just create a link to our topic. You will notice that the word link in the previous sentence is a green colour. This is because it has already been marked up as a link.

Now its is your turn:

You are going to mark some text and make it a link. Do the following steps:

1.	Select the followng text 'Marking a link'. Selecting text is done by dragging the mouse cursor so that the text is highlighted in reverse colours .

2.	Good. Now click on the 'L' icon  in the toolbar. A dialog box will appear in the centre of your screen. Simply type in Link.

Then click on the OK button.

(Since a topic called Link already exists it will appear in the list and can be selected by the mouse to save a bit of typing.)

3.	Excellent.  Read the next two sections: 'What is a topic?' and 'What is a link?' and you are then ready to create your help file.

Remember...  is for making a Link.


What is a Topic
What is a Topic ?

A topic is a chunk of information that is displayed on the screen when viewed by Microsoft Help. If the chunk of information is larger than the screen, scroll bars will appear. The end of a topic is marked by the beginning of the next topic or the end of the document.

Tip:	Besides using the 'T' icon on the toolbar to mark a topic you can use a keyboard shortcut by pressing 'Ctrl+Shift+T'. And if you prefer to use the menus you will find the topic function on the Edit and Insert menu items.

Tip:	The menu items added by EasyHelp can easily be recognised - they all have a '© ' to the left of the item text.

With the topic function you can mark a new topic or edit an existing one. If your text cursor is on an existing topic you will be able to edit the topic.

One more thing to remember about a topic is that there are two types:

1.	A jump topic. This will be marked in a green colour in your document. A jump topic is the most common and can be thought of as a jump to another position in the help file.

2.	A popup topic. This will be marked in a blue colour in your document. A popup topic is normally used to display a smaller amount of information, and is frequently used for definitions and glossary type items.

More about popup topics later.

Remember... the shortcut key combination for making or editing a topic is:
 'Ctrl+Shift+T'.


What is a Link
What is a Link?

A link is a branch to a topic. It is normally a word or phase in your document.

Tip:	Besides using the 'L' icon on the toolbar to mark a topic you can use a keyboard shortcut by pressing 'Ctrl+Shift+L'. And if you prefer to use the menus you will find the link function on the Edit and Insert menu items.

Tip:	Most of the shortcut keys used by EasyHelp use the same technique of holding 'Ctrl+Shift' down (use your thumb and finger) and pressing a single letter.

With the link function you can mark a new link or edit an existing one. If you have marked the text of an existing link you will be able to edit the link.

Like topics, there are two types of link:

1.	A jump link. This will be marked in a green colour in your document. A jump link is the most common and can be thought of as a jumping to another position in the help file.

When viewed by Microsoft Help a jump link will be underlined with a continuous line.

2.	A popup link. This will be marked in a blue colour in your document.

When viewed by Microsoft Help a popup link will be underlined with a dotted line.

More about popup links later.

Remember... the shortcut key combination for making or editing a link is:
 'Ctrl+Shift+L'.


Creating your help file

OK. enough of the theory, let's create our help file. Once you have 'marked up' your document the hard bit is over! Two steps need to be followed to build your help file. We are going to do that now, even though we have not quite finished marking up our document.

Let's do it:

You are going to process your document and then build your help file. Do the following steps:

1.	Click on the 'P' icon on the toolbar. A configuration dialog box will appear in the centre of your screen. Simply click on the OK button.

Wait while your document is processed.

2.	Click on the 'B' icon on the toolbar. A configuration dialog will appear in the centre of your screen. Simply click on the OK button.

A window opens showing the progress of your build. When the build has finished, click on OK and you will be able to view your built help file.

Close the help file and you will return to this tutorial document.

3.	That's it. You have built your help file.

Remember... is for Processing your document.

Remember...  is for Building your help file.


Ther must be more to it!
There must be more to it!

Well there is ... but not much more. Topics and links are the main concepts that you need to grasp. You will notice that any document can be marked up as a hypertext file whilst leaving the document in its original form (except for colour changes!). This is exactly what EasyHelp was designed for: to save trees, by enabling manuals, procedure documents, in fact anything, to be produced in hypertext form.

The best way to learn more about EasyHelp is to work with it for a while. It will eventually become a normal part of your document processing process. For more detailed information and help on specific parts please use the on line help file that was installed with EasyHelp.

Anyway there are a few more areas to explore:

 Graphics

 Configuration

 Popup Topics

 Popup Links

 Deleting Mark-up

These will be covered in the next few pages, simply read through the text to gain an overview of these features. Then to complete the tutorial, we will go through some exercises in the section entitled 'Exercises to Complete the Tutorial'.


Using graphics in your help file
Graphics

 	This is a picture of me. (Pretty handsome chap eh..) This graphic was inserted as a picture using normal Word facilities. It will show up the same in the built help file.

This will also be a picture of me that will appear in the built help file. It was inserted using the 'G' icon on the toolbar. If wish to change the graphic, highlight the [] markers and click on the 'G' icon. The advantage of this method of including graphics is that the graphic does not increase the size of your Word document. Also, special graphics files, called 'segmented hyper graphics' (.shg files), can be included in this way.

Click me. This will jump to a yet another picture of me. The picture you will see is an example of the '.shg' type files. These special graphics files can have 'hot spots' that jump to other topics when you click on them.

You will also note that the [] markers are in green, this is because they have been marked up as a link to the topic containing a picture of me.

Remember... is for adding or editing a Graphic.


Picture Of Me
Picture of Me - Click on my eyes!


Configuring EasyHelp
Configuration

EasyHelp can be configured from within Word. To bring up the configuration dialog click on the [image] icon on the toolbar. The details of the configuration dialog are covered more fully in the on-line help, but some of the main points are described here.

Global Settings

The paths section give the location of the EasyHelp system files and the Help Compiler. The name of the help compiler is specified here.

The format options allow you to enforce a standard style to the topic headings. IF you wish to control the format of the headings to topics, uncheck this option.

The other options allow you to always show the configuration dialog before processing the document or building the help file. You will probably want to uncheck this option as you become more experienced with using EasyHelp.

Projects

The project options allow you to work on different projects and have unique settings for each project. Two projects exist when you first install EasyHelp, default and tutorial.

Tip:	The default project settings are used as the basis of any new projects that you create. Change the default settings to suit your needs.

Project Name. Give a name to your project. A name must be eight characters or less. Your help file will have this name.

Help Title. The title of your help file.

First Help Topic. The name of the help topic to be used as the contents page of your help file.

Markup Details File. Don't worry too much about this now, but as you build more sophisticated help files this file is used to specify a more details about your help topics. For example a long description of your help topics and keywords that can be used to search for those topics.

Help Output Path. This is where your built help file with be put

Help Input Path. This is where your Markup Details File resides and your processed documents.

Graphics Path. This is where any graphics files that are used by your help files reside.

Remember... is for Configuring EasyHelp.


Popup Topics

You will notice that the title of this section is in blue. This indicates that it is a Popup Topic rather than a Jump Topic.


Popup Links

A popup link is also coloured blue in the document. In the help file it will be underlined with a dotted line. For example: see Popup Topics


Deleting EasyHelp Markup
Deleting Mark-up

Mark-up can be deleted in a paragraph by positioning the text cursor anywhere in the paragraph and using the shortcut keys 'Ctrl+Shift+D', or by selecting '© Delete EasyHelp Markup' from the Edit menu.

Graphic mark-up can be deleted by simply deleting the [] markers.


Preparing to Use EasyHelp

In order to use EasyHelp on new or existing document you will need to attach the EasyHelp template (called EasyHelp.dot) to your document. For new documents you will be prompted for the name of the template to use - simply choose EASYHELP from the list. For existing documents you will need to attach the EasyHelp template to your document (use the File | Template... menu option).


Exercises for you to do
Exercises to Complete the Tutorial.

To reinforce your understanding of EasyHelp please take a little time to do the following exercises:

1.	Mark as Topics any of the headings not already marked up. You chose whether to make them jumps or popups. You choose the identifying names.

2.	Mark the following lines as Links. You choose whether to make them jumps or popups. And you choose which Topic to jump to.

What is a Topic?

What is a Link?

Creating your help file

There must be more to it!

Graphics

Configuration

Popup Topics

Popup Links

Deleting Mark-up

Back to the first page

Tip:	If the Topic has been marked up as a jump, then make any link to it a jump also. Similarly if the Topic has been marked up as a popup, then make any link to it a popup also.

3.	Try reviewing your work by editing the Topics and Links in this document.

4.	Try deleting some of the mark-up in this document, and then redo it. Select the text. and then use the shortcut keys 'Ctrl+Shift+D' or select '© Delete EasyHelp Markup' from the Edit menu.

5.	This next exercise is a bit tricky, don't worry if you can not do it . What we need to do is make this page of the document the contents page of the help file. From this page we can then branch to all the other topics.

Select the configure EasyHelp option. Use the shortcut keys 'Ctrl+Shift+C' or select '© Configure EasyHelp' from the Tools menu.

Now we need to edit the 'tutorial' project, by selecting the Edit... button.

Change the First Help Topic' from 'Contents' to 'Exercises'

Close the dialogs by selecting OK.

Remember... is for Configuring EasyHelp.

6.	Process this document. Use the shortcut keys 'Ctrl+Shift+P' or select '© Process Markup' from the Tools menu.

7.	Build the completed document. Use the shortcut keys 'Ctrl+Shift+B' or select '© Build Help' from the Tools menu..

8.	View any errors in the build process. Use the shortcut keys 'Ctrl+Shift+E' or select '© View Build Errors' from the Help menu. There should not be any errors of course!

9.	Browse through the EasyHelp file. To load the help file use the shortcut keys 'Ctrl+Shift+H' or select '© EasyHelp Help' from the Help menu.

That's it. We have finished the tutorial.