Using Help

There are three main ways of getting help in Word97. You can use pop up help, ask the office assistant, or you can go to the Help Topics dialog box.

Pop Up Help

This is the help you get by using the ? button or the What's This menu option. We will use Tools/Options to see how pop up help works.

• Select Tools/Options/View. The following dialog box will appear.
  

• Click on the ? button in the top right hand corner.
• Your mouse pointer will now have a question mark next to it. Click on the writing Hidden Text.
• A yellow box will appear explaining what this option is about. This is pop up help.
  

• Click right in the yellow box. A shortcut menu will appear. You can select Print Topic from this menu to print out pop up help.
• Click in the yellow box to close it and the shortcut menu.
• You can also access pop up help from a shortcut menu. Click right on the words Vertical Ruler. A shortcut menu will appear.
• Click on the What's This? option. The pop up help box will appear.
• Click in the yellow box to close pop up help.

The Office Assistant

Another way to get help is to use the Office Assistant.

• Click on the Office Assistant button. The assistant will appear on your screen.
  

• Type in the question What is hidden text? click on Search. You will get a range of options as shown below.
  

• Click on the blue triangle next to See More to see the other options available. Click on See Previous to return to the first list of options.
• Click on the blue circle next to the option Hide Text. A help box will appear telling you how to hide text.
• Close the Office Assistant (click on the cross in the corner of its box).

The Help Topics Dialog Box.

• Select Help/Contents and Index to bring up the Help Topics dialog box.

The dialog box has three parts - the Contents tab, the Index and the Find tab.

• The Contents Tab
• Click on the Contents tab. You will see a series of books and pages with ? on them.
• Any page (has ? on it) can be looked at. You keep opening books until you find the relevant pages to display.
• Double click on the Formatting book to open it. Another list of books and pages will be displayed.
• Double click on the Formatting Characters book. A list of pages will be displayed.
• Double click on the page Hide Text. A yellow help page will appear on your screen.
  

• Click on the Options menu. To print out this help topic, select Print Topic. The Print dialog box appears and you proceed from here as usual.
• To keep the help topic always visible, select Options/Keep Help on Top. The submenu item On Top should be selected (have a tick next to it). If it is, click in the help topic to exit this menu without making any changes. If it is not selected, click on On Top to select this option.
• Click on Help Topics to go back to the Help Topics dialog box.

The Index Tab

• Click on the Index tab. This is where you search for a specific topic, like an index in a book.
  

• In the top field type in the words hidden text and press Enter. We are looking for help with hiding text.
• In the second field a list of topics will appear. The words hidden text will be highlighted.
  

• Double click on the topic you want to look at. We will double click on hidden text, reviewing.
• A further list of topics will appear.
  

• Double click on the most relevant one - we will look at How do I make sure my document does not contain invisible information?

• The help window for this topic appears on your screen
  

• Select Options/Annotate to add notes to this topic. The Annotate window will appear that you can write your notes in.
• Write Hidden text is not visible on the screen unless you have the Show/Hide button on in the window.
• Click on the Save button. The Annotate window will vanish and a little green paper clip will appear next to the title of the help topic.
• Double click on the paperclip to display the note.
• Click on the Delete button to remove this note. The Annotate window will vanish and the paperclip has disappeared from the help topic.
• Click on Help Topics to return to the dialog box.

The Find Tab

You use this tab to find all the help topics that contain a certain word.

• Click on the Find tab.
• In the first field, type the word you are looking for. We will look for hidden text.
  

• The second field shows a list of related words.
  

• Click on the word that is closest to the word you were looking for. In our case it is text.
• The third field shows a list of help topics for the selected word. Scroll through the list. Many of the topics appear unrelated to text formatting. This is because the find command finds all topics that have the words hidden text in them, unlike the Index command which cross references by subject.
• Click on the topic I can't see the Newspaper columns I've created.
  

• Read the help topic that appears. Notice that it contains a reference to hidden text. Close the help topic window.