More Advanced Procedures > Command Line Options

You can also apply project skins and redefine some or all of your variables from the command line. Note that creating user-defined skins is only possible with the Professional version of Help & Manual. You can use existing skins with the Standard version but you cannot save or edit your own skins.

Skins are applied with the /O= switch and can completely restyle your entire project, including the user-defined variables – it depends what you store in the skin file. The older variables file method is applied with the /V= switch and only redefines variables.

When you are outputting to multiple formats you must enter separate /O= and /V= switches for each output format for which you wish to redefine the variables. See Output to multiple formats and .INI and batch files for details.

The easiest way to redefine user-defined variables in your entire project is with skins, which can also apply an entirely new design to your project. In addition to user-defined variables skins can also include your HTML page templates, your Baggage files and your text and table styles. What is included depends on what you save with the skin file.

1.	Save a project skin file (preferably in your project folder) and edit it with the values you want to use. See Transforming your output with skins for full details.

2.	Reference the skin file in your command line with the /O= switch.

If the file is stored in your project directory you don't need to enter a path for the variables file because the path to the project file is used automatically. If it is stored anywhere else you must enter a path. (You can enter either absolute paths or relative paths relative to the project directory.)

Examples:

helpman.exe "D:\Project Files\Widget Help\Myproject.hmxp" /O=demoversion.hmskin

helpman.exe "D:\Project Files\Widget Help\Myproject.hmxz" /O="D:\Data Files\lightversion.hmskin"

Remember, if any paths or file names contain spaces you must enclose them in quotes!

Multiple skins:

You can specify multiple skins for the same output format in a single command line. If the same attributes are defined in more than one skin the attributes from the last skin in the command line will always be used.

If you want to specify skins for separate output formats you must do so separately for each output format.

This method only redefines variables. You can also combine the two methods in any order – if the skin file and the variables file both redefine the same variables the last file in the command line has priority.

Step one: Create a file with the new definitions

1.	Create a new plain-text file and enter each variable you want to redefine with its new value on a separate line using the following syntax. You don't have to redefine all the variables. Only those included in the file will be affected.

VARIABLENAME1=The new value of variable 1
VARIABLENAME2=<a href="http://www.ec-software.com/">EC Software Website</a>
VARIABLENAME3=The new value of variable 3

Don't enter the <% and %> tags for the variable names in this file and don't insert quotes around the variable value strings. Don't enter tabs or spaces to the left or right of the = signs.

Be careful to enter HTML code for HTML variables and text for text variables. If you enter HTML code for text variables the code will be interpreted as plain text.

2.	Save the file with the .txt extension in your project directory.

Step 2: Publish your project with the /V= switch

Add the /V= switch with the name of the variables file created in Step 1 to the command line. If the file is stored in your project directory you don't need to enter a path for the variables file because the path to the project file is used automatically. If it is stored anywhere else you must enter a path. (You can enter either absolute paths or relative paths relative to the project directory.)

Examples:

helpman.exe "D:\Project Files\Widget Help\Myproject.hmxp" /V=variables.txt

helpman.exe "D:\Project Files\Widget Help\Myproject.hmxz" /V="D:\Data Files\variables.txt"

Remember, if any paths or file names contain spaces you must enclose them in quotes!