More Advanced Procedures > Using Variables

Variables are used to insert text that may change in your output when you compile your project. They are ideal for things like program names and version numbers – to update you then just need to edit the variable definition and recompile. Predefined variables make it easy to insert things like the current date, the title of your help project and so on.

Variables in Help & Manual work pretty much like string variables in programming languages. They have a maximum length of 256 characters. Help & Manual supports both a wide selection of predefined variables and user-defined variables.

In addition to this you can also change the values of variables at compile time by using external text files with alternative variable definitions.

New variable format!

In Help & Manual 4 a new variable format has been introduced. Like hyperlinks, you can now edit variable names directly in the editor and you can also search for them and replace them with Find & Replace. In addition to this you can also type in variables manually in the topic text and topic headers. The variables will then not be highlighted but they will work just the same as variables entered with Insert > Text Variable.