October 15, 1999

Creating Custom Additional Resources Links

Many Microsoft Office 2000 Help topics include an Additional resources link that redirects users to the Microsoft Web site for more information about the topic. You activate these links by installing a compiled Help (CHM) file with special HTML code.

If you create your own organization-specific Help, you can use the Additional resources link to direct your users to a custom Help topic or to a site on your intranet, rather than to the Microsoft Web site. To redirect the links, you create and install a custom CHM file.

Each core Office 2000 application comes with a CHM file that contains Help topics with built-in links to the Web. These links are not active by default. To activate the links, you must either install a new version of the CHM file from the Office Update Web site, or create and install your own version of the CHM file.

The following table lists the Office 2000 CHM files that contain the Additional resources links.

To redirect the Additional resources links, you replace these CHM files with your own. For example, to redirect an Additional resources link in an Excel Help topic, you create a new Xlweb9.chm file to activate the link, and then replace the original Xlweb9.chm file with your custom file.

Caution   To ensure proper functionality, do not replace or modify any other CHM files included with Office 2000. Only the CHM files associated with Additional resources links can be replaced without affecting Office Help functionality.

To redirect Additional resources links to your own Help topics, you perform the following steps:

1. Create a new Help topic to activate the Additional resources link, and include your new Help text or a link to additional information on an internal Web site.
2. Create an HTML Help project file to contain the new topic.
3. Compile and distribute the HTML Help file (CHM file).

Important   Periodically, the default Office 2000 CHM files are updated to point to new information available on the Web. If you create your own version of the CHM files, and your users subsequently update the files with a new version from the Office Update Web site, your custom CHM files are overwritten.

Activate Additional Resources Links

The Additional resources links in Office 2000 work by way of associative links (Alinks) in the HTML code. Alinks connect related topics to each other — in this case the topic with the Additional resources link and your new topic with additional information. The Alink is inactive unless the new topic contains code to activate the link.

To activate an Additional resources link, you first identify the topic you want to link from by finding the Alink value for that topic. Then you create a new Help topic with HTML script that activates the link.

The following illustration shows a Help topic with an activated Additional resources link.

Find the Alink value for a topic

To identify the Help topic you are linking from, you first find the Alink value for that topic.

To find the Alink value

1. Start Help and open the topic in which you want to activate an Additional resources link.
2. Right-click in the topic, and then click View Source.
3. Near the end of the HTML source code, locate the Additional resources object.
4. Make a note of the Item2 value in the object.

   This is the name of the Help topic that you use in your CHM file to activate the Additional resources link.

The following example shows the Additional resources object for the Cancel a Meeting Help topic in Outlook 2000:

<OBJECT ID="hhobj_AR" TYPE="application/x-oleobject"
CLASSID="clsid:adb880a6-d8ff-11cf-9377-00aa003b7a11">
<PARAM NAME="Command" VALUE="ALink">
<PARAM NAME="Font" VALUE="Verdana,8,1">
<PARAM NAME="Text" VALUE="Text:Additional resources">
<PARAM NAME="Flags" VALUE=",,1">
<PARAM NAME="Item1" VALUE="">
<PARAM NAME="Item2" VALUE="retbcCancelMeetingW">
</OBJECT>

In this example, the Alink value used to activate the link for the Cancel a Meeting topic is "retbcCancelMeetingW".

Activate the Additional resources link

After you find the Alink value for a particular Help topic, you activate the Additional resources link for that Help topic by adding script to an HTML Help topic. You can create the HTML Help topic by using any HTML editor, such as Notepad, FrontPage®, or HTML Help Workshop. This topic is eventually rolled into your custom CHM file.

Note   If you are activating more than one Additional resources link, you can create separate topics for each or combine them in a single topic.

To activate the Additional resources link

1. Create a new HTML Help topic by using an HTML editor.
2. In the <Title> tag, type a title that corresponds to the original Help topic.

   For example, Additional Resources: Cancel a Meeting.

3. In the <HEAD> area of the HTML code, include the following object:

   <OBJECT TYPE="applications/x-oleobject"
   CLASSID="clsid:1e2a7bd0-dab9-11d0-b93a-00c04fc99f9e">
   <PARAM NAME="ALink Name" VALUE="AlinkName">
   </OBJECT>

   
   
4. Replace the AlinkName placeholder with the Alink value for the original Help topic.

   For example, the Alink value for the Cancel a meeting topic is "retbcCancelMeetingW".

5. In the <BODY> area of the HTML code, add any information you want your users to read.

The following illustration shows a Help topic that has been set up to activate the Additional resources link for the Cancel a Meeting Help topic.

At this point, you own all of the content in the custom Help file. You can include the custom Help content within the Office Help pane, as shown in the preceding illustration, or you can connect users to a Web page to view more information.

Add a hyperlink to a Web site

If you are creating more extensive custom Help for your organization, you can use your new HTML Help topic as an intermediate step on the way to additional information. In your new topic, you add a hyperlink to redirect the user to an internal Web site for more specific or complete information.

To create an intermediate topic, you use the same steps as you do to activate the Additional resources link. Instead of entering text, however, you insert a hyperlink. In the <BODY> area of the HTML code, you add text informing the user where they will be directed when they click the hyperlink.

For example, you can use the following text to redirect the Cancel a Meeting Help topic to your Web site.

Then you add the hyperlink to connect your intermediate Help topic to the Web site.

To create a hyperlink from your Help topic to the Web

1. Open your intermediate Help topic in an HTML editor and locate the text you want to make into a hyperlink.
2. To create the hyperlink, add the following HTML code:

   <A HREF="javascript:wl1.HHClick();">Link Text</A>

   
   

   Replace the Link Text placeholder with your hyperlink text. Note that wl1 in the code uniquely identifies the link on the page. To activate multiple links, use sequential numbers. For example, the second link is wl2, and so on.

3. To redirect the links, include the following object in the <BODY> area of the HTML code:

   <OBJECT id=wl1 TYPE=application/x-oleobject"
   classid="clsid:adb880a6-d8ff-11cf-9377-00aa003b7all">
   <PARAM name="Command" value="ShortCut">
   <PARAM name="Item1" value=",http://yourwebsite/yourReWebLinks.htm,">
   </OBJECT>

   
   

   Replace the http://yourwebsite/yourReWebLinks.htm string with the URL for your Web site.

The following illustration shows an intermediate Help topic that has been set up to activate the Additional resources link for the Cancel a Meeting and several related Help topics. The topic contains hyperlinks to an internal Web site for more information.

Related links

For more information about creating your own custom Help files, see Creating Your Own Help Topics in the Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit.

Create the Help Project File

After you create your new Help topics, you must create a Help project to contain the topics. This Help project is used to build the compiled Help (CHM) file that replaces the XXweb9.chm file, where XX identifies the Office application.

You can use HTML Help Workshop or Notepad to create the HTML Help project. You add the project information, and then save the file as XXweb9.hhp, where XX identifies the Office application. For example, you use Olweb9.hhp as the project file name for Outlook Web links.

Use the following code as a guide to the type of information to include:

[OPTIONS]
Binary Index=No
Compatibility=1.1
Compiled file=olweb9.chm
Default Window=MAIN
Default topic=html/OutlookCustomHelp.htm
Display compile progress=Yes
Error log file=olweb9.log
Language=0x409 English (United States)
Title=Microsoft Outlook Help

[WINDOWS]

[FILES]

Note   List your intermediate topics (HTML files) in the [FILES] section.

Related links

For more information about HTML Help project files, see the Help system for HTML Help Workshop.

Compile and Distribute the Custom HTML Help File

After you create the topic files, add the code to activate the Additional resources links, and create the project file, you are ready to compile your custom HTML Help file. You can compile your project from within HTML Help Workshop or from the command line.

To compile the new HTML Help file in HTML Help Workshop

1. Start HTML Help Workshop and open your project file.
2. On the File menu, click Compile.
3. In the Project file box, select your project, and then click Compile.

Note   If you have used any #include statements in your HTML Help project, use the command line to compile your Help file, rather than opening the project in HTML Help Workshop. HTML Help Workshop does not handle #include statements properly.

To compile the new HTML Help file from the command line

• On the command line, type hhc, and then type the project file name.

  For example:

  hhc c:\olweb9.hpp

  
  

Note   Be sure you have added Hhc.exe and Hha.dll to your path variable statement before you try to compile your Help file.

After you compile the HTML Help file, you test and then distribute it. You can use a simple copy and paste to replace the original CHM file. Have your users replace the XXweb9.chm files in the \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\1033 folder (for U.S. English versions of Office 2000) with your customized XXweb9.chm files.

Related links

For more information about compiling HTML Help files from the command line, see the Help system for HTML Help Workshop.