Output Format:

The output format you want to compile to. The last format used by the current user is preselected.

Output file and path:

Where you want to generate your output and the name of the output file. By default Help & Manual uses your project directory and the project name. You can change this here whenever you like, however. When you do this the program makes all necessary internal changes automatically.

You can use the browse button to navigate to a different output directory.

Include Options:

These options can be used in combination with Help & Manual's conditional output features. Topics and content that don't match the selections you make here will be excluded from your output. Please study Conditions and Customized Output before using!

If no options are selected the list is highlighted in red to indicate that no output will be generated.

The Selected Topics option:
Selecting this only outputs the topics currently selected in the TOC. This function is designed for testing only. Links to excluded topics are converted to plain text.

When Selected Topics is activated the Include Options list is highlighted in yellow as a warning and reminder.

Links have priority over include options!
If included topics contain hyperlinks to excluded topics the topics will always be included to prevent dead links. This has absolute priority – the only way you can prevent it from happening is to make sure that there are no links to your excluded topics. (Use Find Referrers in the File menu.)

Current format:
By default the include option for the selected output format is preselected. If you also select other options you must leave the current format option selected, otherwise only the content matching the other options will be included.

Display file:

Automatically displays the output file as soon as it has been generated, using the appropriate viewer.

Delete temp files:

Selected by default. Normally all the source files generated to compile HTML Help are deleted. If you deselect this you can view the source files in the \~tmphtml directory, which you can find in your project directory.

Delete temp files:

Selected by default. Normally all the source files generated to compile Winhelp are deleted. If you deselect this you can view the source files in the \~tmprtf directory, which you can find in your project directory.

Test compile:

Compiles the Winhelp output without compression. This produces a larger file but it is much faster. User for testing, not for final output.

Do not compile:

This is a special debugging option for Visual Studio Help. Instead of compiling a finished .HXS file it generates a .HWProj project file that you can open and compile manually in Visual Studio .NET. For details see About compiling VS Help.

Delete temp files:

Selected by default. Normally all the source files generated to compile Visual Studio Help are deleted. If you deselect this you can view the source files in the \~tmphxs directory, which you can find in your project directory.

Index page:

The default index page for Browser-based Help is index.html. You can change this here, along with the output path.

Export invisibles:

If you are looking for this option it is no longer available in Help & Manual 4 because it is no longer necessary. All topics in the Invisible Topics section can now be included or excluded in your output individually with the Builds which include this topic settings in the Topic Options tab. 

Enable local testing for MS Internet Explorer:

This setting allows you to test your Browser-based Help in Internet Explorer on your local machine without having to click away the annoying yellow security warning bar. Click here for further details.

DELETE all files in target folder:

Clears all the files in the output folder before compiling. Use this when you are producing a distribution build to ensure that the folder only contains the files related to the current version of your project. Otherwise the directory may contain HTML files for topics that you have already deleted in your project, left over from previous compiles. These files take up unnecessary space and are also indexed by the indexer and included in the full-text search function, which is something you want to avoid.

Always use this function if you change the title of your project as this also changes the names of all the output files associated with the full-text search function. If the old files are present the indexer may attempt to index them, which can cause errors.

Highlight hotspots:

Displays outlines around the hotspots and links in your PDF output. Dead hotspots are also highlighted – for example to topics that are not present because you are outputting with the Selected Topics option (see above). Use for testing.