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Using this help system

You can press the F1 key at most points in Concordance to take you straight to the topic in this help file which is most relevant to what you are doing at the time.  This is particularly useful when you are looking at a dialog box or when a drop-down or pop-up menu is active.

You can print single topics or groups of topics from this help file. See printing help topics.

You can also download a version of this help file as a manual suitable for printing from the Concordance website



New and old help formats - for advanced users

This help file is installed on your computer in two formats.  The default format, HTMLHelp, works on all versions of Windows. There is also an older Windows Help Format, WinHelp, that will also work on all versions of Windows, but to use this format on Vista, it is necessary to download a viewer from Microsoft. 

I recommend you stick with the new (default) format, HTMLHelp, unless you have a strong preference for the older format, or unless you wish to use Concordance and its Help across a network (Microsoft's new help file format, remarkably, does not work unless the help file is on your own computer!).

To make Concordance use the old help format, you need to edit the file where Concordance stores user preferences, called concordance.ini, find the Options section, and add the line "Use old Windows Help style=true" (without the quotes). For more information on concordance.ini, see Saving and restoring settings and Alternative location for .ini file.

Technical notes on help formats

The new-format help file (HTMLHelp format), is in the file conc.chm. The old-format help file (WinHelp format), is in the file conc.hlp.

If you want to use the new help format from a network drive, you need to follow these instructions from Microsoft:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896358


If you want to use the old help format on Vista, you can download and install Microsoft's viewer here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=82148


And if you wonder why Microsoft did these things to their new help format.... don't ask me!