All the following graphics formats listed below be inserted in your projects directly with the Insert Image tool. Native HTML graphics formats (PNG, GIF, JPG) are published unchanged when you publish to HTML-based output formats. Other formats are converted to one of these formats on the basis of your HTML Export Options conversion settings in your project configuration settings.

•Standard bitmaps (BMP)

•Compuserve Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)

•SVG vector graphics, including compressed SVGs (.svgz)
(See SVG Graphics and Responsive Images for more information)

•JPEG Graphics (JPG)

•Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

•Photoshop images (PSD)

•Paint Shop Pro images (PSP, single-layer only)

•TIFF images (TIF)

•Kodak PhotoCD images (PCD)

•Windows Metafiles (WMF, EMF)
These are now obsolete formats. Use modern SVG graphics instead. See further below for details on display problems with WMF files.

•Impict graphics (IPP, the special format of Help+Manual's Impict graphics editor)

•Segmented Hyper Graphics (SHG, MRB the Winhelp hotspot graphics format, now obsolete.)

You can also insert unsupported graphics by opening them in a graphics program that supports them and copying them to the Windows clipboard. Then just paste the clipboard contents in the Help+Manual editor and you will be prompted to save in an external file.

The now obsolete WMF and EMF vector graphics formats were created long before modern, high-resolution monitors existed. We strongly recommend that you no longer use these obsolete formats. Use modern SVG vector graphics instead.

If no correction is applied, WMF graphics will scale incorrectly on high-res monitors, appearing much larger than they should. EMF Help+Manual corrects this with a program options setting that is on by default. This setting is in

View > Program Options > Editor: Auto-adjust legacy .WMF images for high-resolution displays.

When WMF correction should be on

If you inserted old WMF graphics in old projects the correction prevents them from displaying too large when you switch to a high-resolution monitor. Similarly, it should always be on when users with both high-resolution monitors and standard monitors work on the same project, as it prevents different displays on the different monitors.

When you might want to turn WMF correction off

If you have always worked on a high-resolution monitor and inserted your graphics before correction was available, the introduction of WMF correction will make your images look too small. Turning correction off will return them to normal. However, this display is actually incorrect, and it would be better to turn correction on and adjust the scaling of your graphics instead. Of course, it would be even better to stop using WMF and switch to SVG graphics.

The obsolete.shg format for Winhelp graphics should no longer be used, support for it is only included for backward compatibility. You no longer need to use SHG graphics to add hotspots in your images because you can add hotspots to all graphics formats directly in the Help+Manual editor.

However, if you have old .shg files with hotspots you can use them in your projects directly, provided the hotspots link to valid topic IDs in your project.

Hotspots in .ipp graphics created with Help+Manual 3 cannot be imported to new projects on their own because they are linked to specific projects. The hotspots will only be imported if the .ipp images are imported together with the .hm3 project for which they were created.