If you plan to publish to Microsoft HTML Help (CHM), the files you link to must be stored in the same folder as the CHM help file. The Microsoft HTML Help viewer has a bug that makes it unable to access files outside the help file folder.

1.Select text in your document if you want to use it as the link. You can also skip this step and enter the caption in the hyperlink dialog.

2.Open the Insert Hyperlink dialog box. There are two ways to do this:

•Press Ctrl+L

•Select the Link tool in Write > Insert

3.Select the File Link tab:

4.Enter the filename with extension in the File Name: field.

5.Enter any execution parameters associated with the file in the Execution Parameters: field, for example the file to be opened by the executable file or any necessary parameters for a data file.

6.Click on Test to test the link (the file must be present in your project directory for this to work).

See The Hyperlink dialog for full details on the settings in the dialog.

If you drag any file that is not a known image format or an RTF file into the Help+Manual editor it will automatically be inserted as a file link.

(Image files will be inserted as images. RTF files are converted to formatted text and their content is inserted.)

You can create links to both page numbers and "named destinations" in PDF documents. The procedure is the same for links that will be used in PDF files and in WebHelp output.

Named destinations are jump targets that work like anchors. These links will work in PDFs created by Help+Manual and in WebHelp created by Help+Manual, but not in CHM files. The Microsoft CHM viewer does not support the link format needed to jump to destinations in PDF files. A link to a PDF in a CHM file will simply open the PDF at the first page. See Named destinations in PDF for details on the named destinations created in PDFs by Help+Manual and more background information.

Use normal topic links for targets in the current document

Note that named destinations are only needed for links between two different PDF files or from other applications or documents. Use normal topic links to jump to targets within your Help+Manual projects (i.e. from one topic to another). You don't need to use named destinations for this.

Requirements:

•File Links are required for linking to PDFs:
You must use the File Link option for creating links to targets inside PDF files. The Internet Link option will not always work correctly, even in WebHelp.

•Set the PDF to "interactive" to use named destinations:
If the PDF you are linking to is created with Help+Manual it must be generated using the "interactive PDF" option in your PDF settings. Named destinations are only generated for interactive PDF documents.

Linking to named destinations in PDF documents:

Linking to a page number in a PDF document:

You can automatically embed files referenced with file links into the PDF file when you export your project to PDF. This makes it possible to distribute additional files with your PDF document without having to use multiple files.

When the user clicks on the link the file will be displayed with the application with which it is associated in Windows. This works for most file types, including other PDF files, documents and images of all kinds and even executable EXE files.

1.In the Project Explorer go to Configuration > Publishing Options > Adobe PDF > PDF Layout and activate the option File links - embed linked files with the following extensions:.

2.Make sure that the files you want to link to are stored in one of the folders referenced in your Image Folders list in your project configuration settings. If you have many folder references place the files in one of the first few folders in the list.

3.Create your file links using the normal procedure.

When you publish your project the files referenced with file links will be physically embedded in the PDF file. You no longer need to distribute these files separately as they are now part of the PDF. This will increase the size of the PDF accordingly, of course.

HTML Help:

Supported with execution parameters but do not use paths. All external files must be in the same directory as the HTML Help CHM file.

Also, note that links to some types of external files in HTML Help are now restricted in Windows. This is a security feature implemented by Microsoft so you should test all links on properly-configured XP systems before distributing.

Even more severe restrictions apply to HTML Help files accessed across network drives. Here file links will not work at all and HTML Help itself is also severely restricted. See  the EC Software website for more details. It may be possible to enable the display of CHM files on network drives but file links will not work in CHM files on network drives.

Note that the restrictions on CHM files on network drives have become more strict in Windows 7 and Vista, particularly the 64-bit versions. In these 64-bit versions of Windows, the activation options explained on our website will only work with CHM files opened by 64-bit applications. CHM files will not work when opened by 32-bit applications.

WebHelp:

Exported, but behavior depends entirely on the user's browser – a file link in WebHelp is an URL to a file, with all that entails. Relative and absolute paths are supported; relative paths must be relative to the location of the help when it is accessed by the user. No execution parameters (for example, "wordpad.exe" on its own is OK but "wordpad.exe myfile.doc" will not work).

eWriter Help for Windows and MacOS:

Fully supported, including parameters. You can even link to local executable applications to start them. See this topic for details.

You can use both absolute and relative paths in file links in eWriter Help. However, you are responsible for making sure that the targets of the links actually exist at the time and location where the eWriter help file is viewed! This means that you have to be certain that the files you are linking to will be present in the target location.

This will normally only be the case in a known environment, such as your own corporate network. In most cases, it is advisable to only link to files in the same folder as the eWriter Help file.

ePUB and Kindle eBooks:

File links are not supported.

Visual Studio Help:

File links are explicitly forbidden in Visual Studio Help.

Adobe PDF:

Links to PDFs can include page number references and named destinations (see above). You can link to pages and named destinations in PDFs from PDFs created in Help+Manual, from PDFs created with other tools and from HTML pages created in Help+Manual and other tools. All links to PDF documents created in Help+Manual should use file links. The Internet Link option will not work correctly in some cases.

Links from PDFs created with Help+Manual can be simple file links only, without execution parameters. Links must be activated in Configuration > Publishing Options > Adobe PDF > PDF Layout to work in PDFs (this also applies for links to named destinations and page numbers in other PDFs).

Word DOCX:

Supported but not recommended – users are very likely to move Word DOCX documents around and the links will then be dead. No execution parameters permitted.