Office 2000 Help and Support

Office 2000 includes an extensive Help system to help users find the information they need. In addition, the Microsoft.com Web site has several areas that offer additional articles, tools, and information about Office 2000.

Help available in every Office application

The Office 2000 Help system includes hundreds of Help topics and thousands of index entries. You can either browse or search for Help topics and index entries by using the new Office 2000 Help navigation pane.

Just like the Microsoft Product Help dialog box in Office 97 Help, the Help navigation pane in Office 2000 Help contains three tabs: Contents, Index, and Answer Wizard (which was labeled Find in previous versions of Office). The Contents tab allows you to browse a categorized list of Help topics. The Index tab allows you to browse an index of keywords and symbols. The Answer Wizard tab allows you to enter queries in natural language, such as “How do I print my document?”

The Help menu in every Office 2000 application includes a common set of Help options. You can use these options to get quick What’s This? information about many interface objects, information for users switching to Office from other software applications, and links to Help content found either on users’ computers or on the Web. In addition, the Office Assistant is available to offer suggestions as you work or to help you find information in the Help topics.

Running Office 2000 Help on a locked-down system

The first time a user opens an Office 2000 Help file, the HTML Help control creates an index of links between topics in the Help files. The index file is stored in the same folder and has the same name as the corresponding Help file (except it uses the file name extension .chw).

If the user does not have write permissions to the folders where the Help files are stored (for example, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\1033), then these index files cannot be created. If the index files are not created, certain types of hyperlinks within the Help topics are not functional. For example, the Visual Basic® for Applications and Access Help files contain many cross-links that cannot function without these index files.

To fix this problem, you can grant users write permissions to the folders where the Help files are stored. Alternatively, you can create the Help index files for your users. To create index files for your users, run the PrepHelp utility, which is available on the Office Update Web site. You must have write permissions to the folders where the Help files are stored to successfully run the PrepHelp utility.

Help available on Microsoft Web sites

The Microsoft.com Web site includes several areas where you can find useful information about Office 2000.

Office Update

The Office Update Web site provides product updates, downloads (including utilities, add-ins, and templates), and user assistance for Office 2000, as well as the latest information about Office 2000.

Microsoft Business Center

The Microsoft Business Center Web site includes articles and information about managing your company’s computing resources. This site addresses the spectrum of Microsoft products for business customers.

Microsoft TechNet

The Microsoft TechNet Web site is a Web resource for the IT community. Among the IT resources that you find here is the TechNet Reference section, which includes content about the Office family of applications.

Microsoft Support Online

The Microsoft Support Online search page answers your questions about any Microsoft product, including Office 2000.

Microsoft Developer Network

The Microsoft Developer Network Web site contains a wealth of information for software developers and programmers.

Microsoft Seminar Online

Microsoft Online Seminars Web site provides online seminars on various topics directly to your desktop from the Internet.

Microsoft Press Online

The Microsoft Press® Web site keeps you up to date with the latest titles from Microsoft Press. The Microsoft Press Online Web site contains information about how to find many technical publications, including the Microsoft Office 2000/Visual Basic Programmer’s Guide.

Microsoft Solutions Framework

The Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) Web site is designed to support enterprise organizations by providing information about best practices for IT strategy and project planning.

See also

You can create your own custom Help content and present it to users through the Office 2000 Help system. For more information, see Creating Your Own Help Topics.