Changing the location of help content

You can modify your help preferences so that you access help content from different locations: from the Internet (remote help), from your local computer (local help), or from a local intranet server (enterprise help).

Before you begin

If you plan to access help content from the Internet or to download it to your local computer, make sure that you can connect to the Internet. After downloading help content to your local computer, you no longer require an Internet connection to access the help.

If you plan to access help content from a local server, you must know the host server URL, the path to the help content, and the port address for the intranet server.

If you have downloaded the content, when you start your product later and you happen to be connected to the Internet, the local help is updated automatically.

Procedure

  1. With your product open, click Windows > Preferences. The Preferences window opens.
  2. Expand Help, and click Content. A window similar to the following example opens:
    Help Content preference dialog box
  3. The location of the help content is controlled by enabling the server URL in the table as follows:
    • To access help from the Internet, select the row of the table with the product name, and click Enable. For most products, this is the first row and is enabled by default.
    • To download help and access it from your local computer, select all the rows except the one with Local, and click Disable. This will disable all remote help content. Select the Local entry, and click Enable. If you don't have an internet connection, you need to perform Downloading and installing help content on a computer without an Internet connection.
    • To access help from an intranet server (enterprise help), follow these steps:
      1. Click New.
      2. In the Add new information center dialog box, enter a Name for the help and provide the URL to the information center, as shown in the example that follows.
        Add a new information center dialog box
      3. Click Test Connection to ensure that the URL is valid.
      4. Ensure that any other help information centers listed are disabled.
      5. Click OK to save the settings.

Results

If you decided to access help from your local computer, the help content is downloaded to your computer when you restart the product while an Internet connection is available.
Note: All sites that are used to download content are saved to Favorites Sites and the Favorite sites are used to determine if updates are needed. To view these sites, filter the Site List.

If you decided to access help from the Internet or from an intranet help server, the content is available immediately when you access product help.


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