Basic Working Procedures > Using Graphics

When you add graphics to a project Help & Manual inserts a reference to the graphic file that only contains the name of the file. It finds the graphics by looking in the Project Search Path, which is defined in the Configuration section of your project. The folders listed in the path are searched in order and the first file with a matching name is used.

This strategy makes it very easy to organize and move your graphics files – you just need to change the settings in the Project Search Path to let Help & Manual know where to look for the graphics.

It is generally advisable to store your image folders together with your project folder.

Key Information

If you use multiple graphics folders it is very important to avoid duplicate filenames in different image folders! If you have duplicates Help & Manual will only find the first version of the graphics file with a matching name.

Help & Manual locates graphics on the disk by searching in the directories listed in the Project Search Path. You do not normally need to add image folders to the path manually. The program does this for you when you insert images from a new folder.

•	To edit the Image Folders list manually go to Configuration > Common Properties > Program Search Path for your current project in the Project Explorer.

•	See Project Search Path for more details.

You are free to move your image files and image folders whenever you like. Since only the image file names are stored in your project you just need to change the references in the Project Search Path to tell Help & Manual where to look for the files.

1.	Move and/or rename the image folders and their contents.

2.	Edit the Project Search Path (see above) to remove the old directories and add the new ones. Help & Manual will now find your images in the new location(s).

Splitting and consolidating image folders:

You can also reorganize your image files in any way you like – for example move all your image files to a single folder or to multiple folders in any locations. You just need to tell Help & Manual where to look for the images in the Image Search Path settings.

The references in the Project Search Path are actually relative, even though the full paths of all the folders are shown for your information. This means that moving your project is very easy.

•	If you save both your project folder and your image folders in the same folder you can move your project without needing to make any changes to the Project Search Path.

•	If your image folders and your project folders are in different locations you will need to update your Project Search Path after moving your project folder.

It's always important to avoid duplicate filenames for your graphics. This applies in particular for modular projects, because you will often have separate graphics folders for each project.

Duplicate names across project modules are OK in HTML Help and Winhelp projects with runtime merging because then each module is compiled individually and the correct graphics will be used. However, you need to avoid duplicates in all other formats and in modular projects with publish-time merging in HTML Help and Winhelp as well.

Use filename prefixes for graphics files in modules

The simplest solution for this problem is to add a unique prefix to the filenames of graphics files used in modules, in the same way that you use prefixes for the topic IDs in modules. The prefix should be short – two letters and an underline character are usually plenty – and should identify the module.