Building Targets

By building a target (see Targets), Doc-To-Help can produce multiple types of outputs: NetHelp (including responsive), HTML Help, EPUB, Eclipse Help, JavaHelp, Manual, Microsoft Help Viewer, and Microsoft Help 2.0. See Output Types.

Target names and other details are customized using the Help Targets dialog. See Editing Target Settings.

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  1. Save your Word source documents.
  2. Select the Doc-To-Help ribbon. In the Project section, click Build. The Doc-To-Help Build panel opens.

  3. From the Active Target drop-down in the local toolbar, select the target you want to build.

    Note When you select a target in the local toolbar, it does not affect the active target in the Doc-To-Help application and it does not affect other Word panels and other open Word source documents. However, when you start building a target, if you have other Word source documents open, the Target drop-down in those documents will synchronize to show the target that is being built.

  4. In the local toolbar, click Build or Rebuild.

    • Build When you choose the Build button, Doc-To-Help recognizes all the source documents that have been edited since the last build and makes those changes in the output. This is the quickest way to build a project.
    • Rebuild When you choose the Rebuild button, Doc-To-Help deletes all of the content in the output folder of your target, then builds everything from scratch (not just source documents). If you make any global changes to your project (e.g., changing project settings, creating variables, glossary entries), you should do a rebuild. A rebuild will always take longer than a build, especially on large projects. You should always do a rebuild before reviews and releases.
  5. When the target is done building, a dialog asks if you want to view the target. Click Yes to view it; otherwise click No. You can also view the target by clicking View in the Doc-To-Help Build panel's local toolbar.

  6. (Optional) You can also do any of the following:

    • Use the Cancel Build button in the local toolbar to stop a build.
    • Click the Open Build Log link on the Build Log tab to view the build log.
    • Click the Errors and Unresolved Links tab to view and sort any errors that may have occurred during the build.

Note If you are building a target in Word, you will not be able to open Doc-To-Help from Word until the build is completed.

Note If you remove targets from your project in the Help Targets dialog (see Editing Target Settings), you will not see these targets when viewing Target drop-downs in Word (e.g., in the Contents window pane or in the Doc-To-Help Build panel).

EPUB output will open in your default reader (such as Calibre) after it is built. To set the default EPUB reader in Doc-To-Help, go to File > Doc-To-Help > Common Tasks > Options. In the Options dialog, select Viewers and choose the EPUB viewer executable.

When you build a Manual target, you can build a PDF version at the same time. To do so, open the Help Targets dialog, choose the Manual target, and select the Generate PDF check box. After building the target, you can then open the Home ribbon and click the View PDF button. Projects will use Word's built-in PDF converter.

When you view the Word version of your Manual output, the resulting file will have a different Doc-To-Help ribbon than the source documents. In the target document, the ribbon will contain only the basic styles and tools necessary to make final adjustments to your manual before printing or conversion to PDF, such as the Cross-Reference button (see Inserting Cross-References) and the Margin Notes button (see Creating Margin Notes).

Note When building output, you can schedule builds so that they run on a one-time, daily, or weekly basis. See Scheduling Builds with the Build Scheduler.

Note You can also build targets in batch mode using the command line (see Building Targets in Batch Mode) or using Windows Services (see Building Targets Using Windows Services).

Note You can edit Word source documents while building a target. If you choose to edit a source document that has been shared to SharePoint, it can only be edited locally and all automatic operations with the SharePoint server are disabled.

Note Due to styles set in the default target template, right-to-left (RTL) text containing left-to-right (LTR) text inline will not display properly for NetHelp output in some browsers (e.g., Safari, Microsoft Edge). For example, the LTR text might appear on the far right side of a paragraph when it should be somewhere on the left. To fix this issue for your project, you should modify the Normal style in the target template so that it displays in a RTL format. Use the following steps:

  1. In Word, select Target > Edit.
  2. Select the target template and click Edit.
  3. Open the Home ribbon, and at the bottom of the Styles section click .
  4. In the Styles window, right-click the Normal style and select Modify.
  5. In the lower left corner select Format > Paragraph.
  6. Choose Direction: Right-to-left.
  7. Click OK, then save the target template.
  8. Rebuild the NetHelp target.