HelpNDoc help file

HelpNDoc’s documentation is available in multiple formats for online browsing or for download. Browse HelpNDoc’s help files — created by HelpNDoc — to learn how to use it.

Online HTML Help

Browse the online HTML version of HelpNDoc’s documentation.

HND Project source file

Download the HelpNDoc source file as an HND project file.

Adobe Acrobat PDF file

Download a PDF version of HelpNDoc’s help file.

Word DocX document

Download a DocX version of HelpNDoc’s help file.

Step-by-step guides

Follow the guides to learn how to use HelpNDoc and be more efficient when creating help and documentation projects.

Manage HelpNDoc projects

Manage the table of contents

Maintain properties of your topics

Manage keywords

How to create a keyword

How to create a keyword ›

You can use keywords to index your topics to help users to find the information they are looking for. When you create keywords in HelpNDoc, users can access them on the Index tab when you publish CHM and HTML versions of your documentation.

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How to rename a keyword

How to rename a keyword ›

HelpNDoc gives you tremendous flexibility in updating keywords: once a keyword has been added and associated with some topics, it is possible to rename it without losing anything.

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How to define parent and child keywords

How to define parent and child keywords ›

Keywords are displayed in alphabetical order in your keywords panel. To help users more readily find information when they use your CHM and HTML documentation, HelpNDoc allows you to define an organizational hierarchy by forming parent-child relationships among your keywords.

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How to associate keywords with topics

How to associate keywords with topics ›

To allow users to take full advantage of keywords in your CHM and HTML documentation, it’s recommended that you create an association between your keywords and each relevant topic. There’s one simple step for creating this association, and it’s easy to remove the association. Both are outlined below.

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How to manage the association between a keyword and topics

How to manage the association between a keyword and topics ›

After you create keywords, they are available on the Index tab on published documentation on both the CHM and HTML documentation formats. Providing keywords helps users find the information they’re looking for as they can be associated with multiple topics to group them together when they share a specific theme.

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Manage the library

How to update a library item

How to update a library item ›

The library is a central repository where you maintain your multimedia files. When you insert a library item into your documentation, you are actually inserting a pointer to that item in your library. As a result, when you update an item in the library, your update is automatically reflected throughout your entire project.

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How to insert a library item into a topic

How to insert a library item into a topic ›

In order to insert an image or another media element into your documentation, you must first place it into the library. The library is a central repository where you maintain your multimedia files. After you add the item to the library, it can be inserted into one or multiple topics.

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How to create an image map

How to create an image map ›

HelpNDoc makes it easy to create image maps that allow readers to click on regions of an image to access hyperlinks. An image map can be used to document parts of a screenshot, a photography, a road map… by allowing readers to click parts of the image to access greater details about it.

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Generate documentation

How to rename a publishing output in HelpNDoc

How to rename a publishing output in HelpNDoc ›

You can define the outputs that are generated when you publish your documentation. After you’ve created a publishing output, it is displayed in your build list. When you publish your documentation, it is displayed with its assigned name. To support your specific requirements, you may update this name for any output at any time.

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How to delete a build in HelpNDoc

How to delete a build in HelpNDoc ›

You can define the builds that are generated when you publish your documentation. These builds are displayed in your build list and can be enabled or disabled at will. When a build becomes obsolete, it is possible to remove it from your build list.

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How to enable your publishing outputs in HelpNDoc

How to enable your publishing outputs in HelpNDoc ›

HelpNDoc gives you the flexibility and control to determine which of your builds are published when you generate documentation. When you enable a build, it is generated when you use your build list. You also have the option to temporarily disable a build to prevent it from being generated. This flexibility permits you to maintain builds in your build list without requiring you to publish them each time you generate documentation.

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How to define build settings in HelpNDoc

How to define build settings in HelpNDoc ›

When you’re ready to generate documentation, HelpNDoc allows you to define the location of your output files and select the templates that are used to generate your documentation. In addition, you can further customize settings such as color, font size, numbering style, and create conditional tags to tailor your documentation to support specific requirements.

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How to localize your documentation output

How to localize your documentation output ›

Some templates include hard-coded English terms (such as “Table of contents”, “Index”, “Search”) which needs to be translated when you generate your documentation in another language. This can easily be done on a build by build basis in HelpNDoc’s generate documentation window.

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Use the live spell checker

How to check the spelling in HelpNDoc

How to check the spelling in HelpNDoc ›

HelpNDoc provides a flexible multi-language live spell checker that puts you in control of the dictionaries and settings that are used. It checks spelling as you enter content into your editor, add new topics into your table of contents, create new keywords, post new items to your library… Your whole project is covered from spelling errors.

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How to install a new dictionary in HelpNDoc

How to install a new dictionary in HelpNDoc ›

HelpNDoc provides over fifteen default dictionaries that you may use to spell check your help and manuals. You can also install new dictionaries from Apache’s OpenOffice.org. These open source dictionaries are free and support the spectrum of international languages and a variety of dialects as well as specific requirements such as medical terminology, grammar rules, and common names.

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How to insert anchors

How to insert anchors ›

HelpNDoc offers you the option of inserting anchors in your topics to further enhance the usefulness of your hyperlinks. By default, hyperlinks take readers to the beginning of specific topics. When you insert anchors within topics you get the added benefit of being able to create hyperlinks to those embedded anchors. As a result, readers can be taken to exact locations within topics, rather than the beginning of topics.

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How to create and update hyperlinks

How to create and update hyperlinks ›

Using hyperlinks can help you enhance the value of your documentation by putting readers in control and allowing them to interact with your documentation. Rather than forcing readers through documentation linearly from beginning to end, HelpNDoc makes it easy for readers to click links to access information they are interested in. Using hyperlinks can also help readers follow steps of a process.

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How to define hyperlinks to specific topics

How to define hyperlinks to specific topics ›

HelpNDoc makes it simple for you to make your documentation more interactive by giving readers hyperlinks so they can learn more about topics that they are interested in and follow steps of a process. You can select any topic from your table of contents to establish a hyperlink to that topic. You can also select to link to anchors embedded within your topics.

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How to define hyperlinks to relative topics

How to define hyperlinks to relative topics ›

HelpNDoc allows you to define hyperlinks that are relative to the position of the topics that readers are viewing when they click the hyperlinks. For example, hyperlinks defined to take readers to the “next topic” would display the topics that immediately follow the ones readers are currently viewing. This permits you to maintain the relative position of hyperlinks when you change the order of topics without needing to update the specific hyperlinks.

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Using the report template editor

How to create a new report template

How to create a new report template ›

When you publish your PDF and Word documentation, HelpNDoc follows instructions in templates when generating the documentation. You can create PDF and Word templates that define the cover, paper size, orientation of the page, margins, headers, and footers as well as the appearance of your table of contents and topic titles. HelpNDoc makes it easy to create new templates from scratch. After creating a new template, you can then tailor it to support specific requirements.

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How to duplicate an existing report template

How to duplicate an existing report template ›

As easy as it is to create a new template for Word and PDF documentation formats from scratch, you can save time by copying an existing template. After you copy a template, you can then tailor the settings and properties to create customized documentation that supports your specific needs.

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How to rename a template

How to rename a template ›

It’s recommended that you assign a name that helps you remember the purpose of a template. As you update the settings and properties of your templates, it may become necessary to update the names of your templates as well. This is quite simple to do.

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How to update your templates

How to update your templates ›

HelpNDoc offers you an intuitive template editor that makes it easy to customize the look and feel of your PDF and Word documentation to support specific requirements. You can tailor any of the settings and properties of the PDF and Word templates that you’ve created from scratch as well as those that you’ve copied from other templates.

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Using the project analyzer

How to analyze your project

How to analyze your project ›

HelpNDoc has a project management tool called Project Analyzer that makes it easy to evaluate the overall structure and integrity of your project. Plus, you can drill-down to resolve specific issues. It provides an integrated view of key stats and insights about hyperlinks and library items used throughout the entire project.

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How to analyze hyperlinks

How to analyze hyperlinks ›

The Project Analyzer makes it easy to evaluate the hyperlinks used throughout your project. You can use the Project Analyzer to sort hyperlinks by their properties (i.e. type, caption, target, and topic) and drill-down to resolve issues such as broken and duplicate links.

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How to analyze the items in your library

How to analyze the items in your library ›

The Project Analyzer is a flexible and powerful tool that allows you to manage the items in your library and evaluate their usage throughout your entire project. It lists all occurrences of library items as well as any topics that use them. You can sort items by type, caption, source, and topics. You can also use the Project Analyzer to eliminate unnecessary and outdated duplicates to streamline your updating processes.

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Conditional content generation

Use the script editor

How to use the script editor

How to use the script editor ›

HelpNDoc provides powerful scripting capability that utilizes the HelpNDoc API to automate repetitive tasks. This advanced feature allows you to create new scripts and load existing ones, execute and build scripts, and save scripts for future use.

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Manage styles

Image Editor

How to open HelpNDoc's image editor

How to open HelpNDoc’s image editor ›

HelpNDoc’s image editor is a versatile tool designed to streamline the process of incorporating and customizing visuals within your documentation. Offering a user-friendly interface and a variety of editing options, this feature ensures that users can easily enhance the quality and relevance of images and graphics, thereby improving the overall effectiveness of their documents.

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Format conversion

How to convert a HLP (WinHelp) help file to a CHM (HTML Help) help file

How to convert a HLP (WinHelp) help file to a CHM (HTML Help) help file ›

The Microsoft WinHelp HLP file format was introduced with Windows 3.0 in 1990 as the default help file format for the Windows operating system. As of Windows 10, Microsoft doesn’t provide any HLP file viewer anymore, making this legacy help file format unusable. Fortunately, HelpNDoc can import existing WinHelp HLP file and convert them to the standard Windows Compiled HTML Help (CHM) file format.

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How to convert a CHM help file to a PDF document

How to convert a CHM help file to a PDF document ›

You can use HelpNDoc to import and convert a CHM help file into a PDF document. The PDF document contains not only the content from the CHM file, but also the images, hyperlinks and organizational structure, including the table of contents. After importing the CHM help file, you have the option of updating the content.

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License management