More Advanced Procedures > Using HTML Templates

All the various HTML templates used in your projects are edited in the same way. For details on the relationships between templates and help windows please study the Help Windows and Templates and Secondary Windows chapters before trying to edit your HTML templates.

Editing HTML templates requires familiarity with HTML:

You must be familiar with manual HTML coding to edit the HTML templates used in Help & Manual manually. Your code is also entirely your own responsibility – it is not syntax-checked in any way by Help & Manual or the compiler. Only delete or change code in the standard templates if you really understand what you are doing, otherwise you may experience errors and malfunctions in your output!

How to edit HTML templates:

Topic page templates:

Go to Project > Project Properties > HTML Help > Topic Pages to edit the templates for your topics.

These templates are used for all HTML-based output formats and can also be accessed in the Browser-based Help and Visual Studio Help sections of Project Properties.

Browser-based Help templates:

Go to Project > Project Properties > Browser-based Help > Table of Contents / Keyword Index to edit the templates for the TOC and keyword index of the Browser-based Help output.

1.	In the Design Mode: field at the top of the dialog displayed select Edit HTML template directly.

2.	In the HTML template for help window type: field select the help window type whose template you want to edit. This is Main for the standard window type that is applied to all topics in the TOC by default (in the Topic Pages section).

3.	Edit the template in the editor window displayed. The editor supports syntax highlighting to make editing easier.

4.	When you are finished click on . The changes will be applied immediately but some of them may only be visible in your compiled output, not in the Help & Manual editor.

Don't switch back to simple editing mode after editing a template! This automatically overwrites the HTML template for the window type you were editing with the standard template.