Important Notice

The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software, purely for historical purposes. If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming, you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully out of date.

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─────Modifying a Microsoft Help Database────────────────────────────────────
 
     Two methods can be used to modify a Microsoft help database file.
 
     Decode/Encode Method
 
       1. Decode the existing help database with HELPMAKE to create a
          source file.
 
       2. Edit the source file.
 
       3. Encode the file with HELPMAKE to create a new help database.
 
     NOTE: If you modify a Microsoft help database, be sure to use
           /A: to specify the colon as a control character.
 
     Concatenation Method
 
       1. Create a source file with the new help topics you wish to
          add.
 
       2. Encode the file with HELPMAKE to create a new help database.
 
       3. Make a backup copy of the existing help database file.
 
       4. Concatenate the new help database with the existing help
          database.
 
     See: ◄Concatenating Help Databases►
 
     WARNING: PWB truncates lines longer than 250 characters. Some
              databases contain lines longer than this. To edit or
              create database files with extremely long lines, you must
              either use an editor (such as Microsoft Word) that does
              not restrict line length, or extend long lines using the
              backslash (\) line-continuation character.
                                    -♦-