Help form and documentation

[gunslingor]

What's the best ways to implement help windows and the like? What I did already was to create a form with just a picture control, then whenever the user clicks and 'info' icon the help form is opened and the "picture" property of the picture control is changed to the relevant Help Picture (developed in visio and word, saved as JPG). I haven't gottent very far on this solution and the solution sucks, what's a better way to get help information to the user within access? My forms/processes are fairly complicated, takes a page of explanation.:banghead:

 

[gunslingor]

Wow, don't every speak at once... Am I ugly or something? Thought this would be a common issue with common solutions.

 

[gunslingor]

Wow, stop all the chit chat fellas, lol. God, no one has a good solutions months and months later?:banghead:

 

[CJ_London]

all depends in the type of help you are providing - have you considered

• make use of control tip text
• make use of status bar text
• have a button or picture control which when clicked opens a popup form with a recordsource of a help table
• have a button or picture control which when clicked opens a subform with a recordsource of a help table
• Have your help data in a word document with bookmarks for each section and when a control is clicked it opens the document to the relevant bookmark
• create 'howto' videos and put on the web e.g.youtube - when a ctrl is clicked it opens the video in a browser

 

[gunslingor]

THANKS!

• make use of control tip text
  • Don't like it, too limited.
• make use of status bar text
  • Same
• have a button or picture control which when clicked opens a popup form with a recordsource of a help table
  • This is what I have now... but resizing the picture on the form for various help dialogs is an issue... so some of the help pictures end up being tiny... the only way to make this work would be to make all the pics the same or OnOpen go to design view, resize form to the right picture size, then back to form view and I'd prefer not to do either.
• have a button or picture control which when clicked opens a subform with a recordsource of a help table.
  • Good idea, might try this... lacks the pictures though which are typically helpful in a help dialog.
• Have your help data in a word document with bookmarks for each section and when a control is clicked it opens the document to the relevant bookmark
  • This sounds ideal... better if it can be a PDF, can PDF bookmarks work in this fashion? Could you provide sample code to get me started?
• create 'howto' videos and put on the web e.g.youtube - when a ctrl is clicked it opens the video in a browser
  • Not a bad idea for the backburner... perhaps a training video.

 

[CJ_London]

This sounds ideal... better if it can be a PDF, can PDF bookmarks work in this fashion? Could you provide sample code to get me started?

I don't know about PDF's - suggest give it a try, the principle will be the same.
No code is required - you just need a hyperlink - configure it to include the bookmark.

This link should help
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/w...rent-office-program-document-HA001188061.aspx