Providing Help to Users

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Shane - 04 Oct 2006 07:15 GMT

Hi,

I'm developing some user forms for Word 2002/2003. They are the
dialog box type userforms not the document forms.

I'd like to give my users some help when filling out the various
fields. I've been using user forms called via a command button with
labels as the help text but is there a better way? I'm thinking of
chm files but am concerned about 1) the overhead of calling a chm and
2) potential technical issues with distribution of both the templates
and the chm file. Then there is always manual for them to look up (my
preference to be honest).

You thoughts on giving help to users would be appreciated.

Regards
Shane

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Jonathan West - 04 Oct 2006 11:21 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> You thoughts on giving help to users would be appreciated.

Hi Shane,

It all depends on how sophisticated you want to get about it.

If all you want to do is provide an online version of the manual, you could
create a PDF file of the manual and have that open when the user clicks the
help button.

If you want to get more context-sensitive, and display help specific to that
dialog when you click the Help button, then you will probably need to go to
the trouble of creating a CHM file, with Topic IDs, so that you can open the
file at the Topic ID relevant to the dialog the chm is being called from.

As for distribution issues, that depends on who you are distributing to. Is
this for internal use within your organisation? If so, talk to your network
administrators about distribution - it is their problem rather than yours
once they have agreed that your app should go out to the users.

If you are intending distributing the app to outside users, then you will
probably need to create an installer for it. Having an installer that
automates the process of getting all the files in the right places is
probably the safest approach to making sure that the technical issues are
overcome.

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Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
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Shane - 04 Oct 2006 23:26 GMT

Thanks for the feedback Jonathan.

>If so, talk to your network
>administrators about distribution - it is their problem rather than yours

Hahahaha. It's me so it's mine 8-) Actually, it's a good thing as I
have complete and utter control (and responsibility) for anything
remotely related to IT. No IT crew to tell me it can't be done.

Each of your points I've considered. And after sleeping on it, I
think I'll head down the track of limited help via userform dialogs
and rtfm for more comprehensive guidance on using the forms.

Thanks again for your feedback.

Cheers

>> Hi,
>>
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
>probably the safest approach to making sure that the technical issues are
>overcome.

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