Adding Content and Features

As soon as you start a project, you can do any number of things with it. Technically, you could build the final output immediately. However, if it is a new project with a new Word document, building the output right away would not do your end users much good, since the output does not yet have much real substance. The project needs content, links, navigation, and all of the other elements necessary to help your end users.

WATCH THE VIDEO (Source Documents and Content)

WATCH THE VIDEO (Templates and Styles)

You can add multiple Microsoft® Word source documents to your project, and within those you can add many kinds of elements and objects. Some features (e.g., images, lists, tables) are built into Word and therefore always available, whether the document is part of a Doc-To-Help project or not. Other features are unique to Doc-To-Help and are available in Word through the Doc-To-Help ribbon, Target ribbon, Project ribbon, and Doc-To-Help Project panel. See Source Documents.

In addition to the elements and objects that you add within a Word source document, there are other features (e.g., indexes, groups, related topics, custom tables of contents) that you can add and manage in the Doc-To-Help Project panel. See Doc-To-Help Project Panel.

Following is a list of elements and objects that you can add to your source documents or within the Doc-To-Help project. We're not listing the many elements and objects that are built in to Word. For information about adding those kinds of features, see the online Help provided with Word. Instead, we are focusing on the elements and objects that are specific to Doc-To-Help.

Some of these features can be used in online output as well as print-based output, whereas some are for online output only.

  • Documents You can add new or existing Word documents to your project. See Adding, Renaming, and Removing Documents.
  • ActiveX Controls These controls can be used to provide features in compiled HTML Help systems (CHM files). See Inserting an HTML Help ActiveX Control.
  • Conditions A condition is a single-sourcing feature that you can apply to files or to different areas of your content, so that some information displays in some outputs but not in others, or it displays only when viewed on a certain device or screen size. It is a key feature when it comes to single-sourcing in Doc-To-Help. See Conditions.
  • Glossaries A glossary is a list of specialized words with their definitions, accessed in online output or placed at the end of a PDF. When you create a new Doc-To-Help project, a glossary document is added automatically. However, you can delete this file or flag a different document as your glossary. Whenever you like, you can add glossary terms to the file. See Glossaries and Adding Terms to the Glossary.
  • Image Maps You can insert images into your source documents, using the standard options available in Word. (We recommend using the "Insert and Link" option, and placing images in your Media folder.) For online outputs, you can create hotspots from an image that link to topics, keywords, or groups. See Images and Creating Image Maps.
  • Indexes Index entries are also called "keywords" (or K-links). They will display in your output in an index. See Indexes.
  • Margin Notes Margin notes are used to place text or images in the left margin of a manual, next to the main body of the text. Margin notes do not appear in online outputs unless you explicitly link them to the text, where they will appear as popups. See Creating Margin Notes.
  • Multimedia In the Doc-To-Help ribbon in Word, there is an option named "Multimedia" that lets you insert video files and embed online videos. See Multimedia .
  • Navigation Links A navigation link is a feature that points to additional information from a specific area in a topic or document. This can include basic links, cross-references, inline text effects (expanded, drop-down, popup), expanding/collapsing sections, groups, and related topics. See Navigation Links.
  • Tables You can quickly insert a table into a Word document using the Doc-To-Help Special Formatting toolbar or ribbon. The table will be pre-formatted with the correct Doc-To-Help styles, and you can specify borders, indentation, and shading of the heading row. See Inserting a Standard Doc-To-Help Table.
  • Tables of Contents Doc-To-Help automatically creates a table of contents (TOC) for you based on the structure of your documents. But you can create a custom TOC (you can even have different TOCs for different targets) if you wish. See Creating a Table of Contents.
  • Variables Variables allow you to write content once, and manage it in one place for reuse across your project. When adding a new text variable (not a rich content variable), you can now select one of three types: Text, Version, or Date/Time. See Variables.

Note Doc-To-Help supports DOC, DOCX, DOCM, and RTF files.

Note These features are all available through Microsoft Word. See Ribbons.

Note Doc-To-Help styles reside in individual Doc-To-Help templates (such as D2H_NORM.dotx), so you should create your files using a predefined Doc-To-Help template and edit it to your specifications. See Templates and Styles.

Word uses template files (DOTX) whenever you create a new Word document. Depending on the template you use, various styles are already available for you. Doc-To-Help provides predefined templates to determine how your content will look and work. The name of these templates all begin with a D2H prefix (e.g., D2H_NOMARGIN.dotx) and contain both Word styles and Doc-To-Help's special styles, which you apply to content in your Word source documents (see Applying Styles in Microsoft Word). Most templates are designed for print-based outputs, while a couple are available for online outputs. See About Templates and Styles.

After you add elements to your source document or project, you can then move on to the other basic steps: