When you are testing your project you will often want to find topics and check links to and from your topics. Help+Manual includes several tools that make this a quick and easy process. In addition to the search functions described here you can also use the Report Tool to generate detailed reports on your project with full lists of topics, links, graphics and other details.
The functions for finding and replacing text in Help+Manual are very similar to the comparable functions in word processors, with some additional options for the special requirements of help projects.
In addition to this the program also has powerful functions for locating individual topics by their topic IDs and their context numbers, and for locating "referrers", i.e. topics containing links to the current topic or topics.
 Productivity Tip
The Search function is also available in the XML Source editor tab (Professional and Floating license versions only) and all HTML editor windows for HTML templates and other editing windows. Just right-click in these editor windows to access.
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1.Select or press Ctrl+F.
2.Enter your search text and choose your options. These are self-explanatory and are very similar to all search and replace functions in all modern word processors.
Find where:
Topic Keywords searches for index keywords you have associated with your topics.
Image File Names changes the filenames of graphics file references in your projects so that they refer to files with different names. See below for details.
Captions searches in TOC captions (the Topic Title field in the Topic options tab below the main editor window). Note that replacing this text does not change the name of the topic in the TOC or the header in the header box above the editor. Instead, it "uncouples" the topic title attribute from the other two texts, giving it a different value.
Table of Contents searches in the TOC in the Project Explorer (search only, no replace).
Conditional Texts searches and replaces the tag names in conditional text build tags. See Conditional text include options for details on how these tags work and how they are used.
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Variables:
Note: This only works for variables that have been typed in manually. You can't use the search function to locate variables inserted with the Variable tool in .
1.Select Find & Replace in the menu and set the scope of your search (current topic, all topics etc).
2.To search for a variable or replace text with a variable enter:
<% + VARIABLENAME + %>
For example if your variable is called DEMOBUILD you would type:
<%DEMOBUILD%>
When you insert or replace variables with Find and Replace the variables are not highlighted in the topic text. This is exactly the same as typing in variables manually – the variables are still fully functional, they are just not highlighted in the text. (The highlight is just an editing convenience to make the variables easier to see.)
Conditional tags:
1.Select Find & Replace in the menu and set the scope of your search (current topic, all topics etc).
2.Select Conditional Texts in the field as the type of search to perform.
3.Enter the conditional tags you want to search for, including the commas if you are searching for tags with multiple conditions.
Examples:
| Find what: | PDF,NEWBUILD,HTML |
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Images are referenced with their file names only so you can "replace" them with other images by replacing their file names in your topics. Help+Manual finds the image files by searching through all the folders in your Project Search Path so if the file name you use is in one of those folders Help+Manual will be able to find it.
1.Select or press Ctrl+F.
2.Select Image File Names in the Find Where section.
3.Enter the exact name of the image file as the search and replacement texts, including the file extension if you wish, for example: main_screen.bmp.
4.Choose your other options. These are self-explanatory and are very similar to all search and replace functions in all modern word processors.
Tip: Changing image type
You can change the type of image used by searching and replacing the file name extension. For example, if you have replaced all your PNG files with BMP files of the same name, you would just need to replace all instances of .png in image file names with the .bmp extension.
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1.Select
2.Select Topic ID or Help Context Number. |
You can find links to the current topic with the Find Referrers function, which also shows which topics the current topics links to.
Links to and from the current topic:
•Select
OR
•Right-click on a topic in the TOC and select in the context menu.
Selecting for a chapter in the TOC will display the referrers for all the topics in the chapter. You can also use this function for multiple topics. Just select two or more topics in the TOC before selecting the function. Note that this function will only find links to the current topic or topics in the current project! You cannot use this function to locate links to the topic in other projects or help files.
Finding links in all topics:
•Select and select either Long Report or Full Report mode.
The report will include lists of all outgoing and ingoing links in all topics in your project.
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See also:
Find & Replace (Reference)
Find Referrers (Reference)
The Project Reports Tool
