When customizing your help file, you will often include files with your help file that were not generated by Help Producer. These files are typically files that cannot be pasted into a Word document or are not part of the visible content, such as CSS files, Java Scripts, or videos. To keep these files separated from the files generated by Help Producer, you can create a Resource Directory. When the help project is exported, Help Producer will create an output directory and copy all files and sub-folders from the resource directory to the output directory. If this feature is used properly, the output directory will only contain generated content, and hence may be safely discarded or excluded from backups.

Note   The files in the resource directory are merely copied to the output directory, and are not necessarily included in the help file. To ensure that your resource files are included in the help file, add the files to the list of include files.

Create a resource directory

1. By using Windows Explorer, create a folder that should contain all resource files and copy all resource files into this folder. The resource folder must not be a sub-folder of the output directory.
2. On the Help Producer toolbar, click Configure Help Project .
3. From the tree view, select the category Filter, and select the tab Template.
4. In the field Resource directory, specify the path to the resource folder.

Add files to the include files list

1. On the Help Producer toolbar, click Configure Help Project .
2. In the tree view, select the category Collection, and select the tab Includes.
3. Click Add to add one or more files to the list of files that are always included with the compiled help file. All files specified in the include files list should reside in the output folder or a sub-folder of the output folder.

   Generated files, such as HTML topic pages and images, are included automatically in the help files. Files that should be included manually are files that are used in or linked by HTML pages, such as scripts and cascaded styles sheets.

See Also

Customizing Help Files | Includes, Collection, Project Editor Dialog Box