Microsoft Office

When we mention “Help” in the software publishing world, we don’t mean technical support or maintenance (that’s generally called “Support”). Instead, the collective term “Help” refers to the free published content that ships with most commercial or professional software programs. When we mention “Help” in the software publishing world, we don’t mean technical support or maintenance (that’s generally called “Support”). Instead, the collective term “Help” refers to the free published content that ships with most commercial or professional software programs.

What you may not have noticed before is that, regardless of the interface, the programs in the Office 2007 suites have two very different Help experiences. When your computer is connected to the Internet, and if you (or your system administrator) have given permission, the Help viewer will fetch and display the most up-to-date and complete content for the Office 2007 Help in each program. This experience is preferred because, in this so-called “connected state,” you’re sure to always see the latest and greatest Help content that’s available for your program(s). In this scenario, the Help viewer bypasses the Help files that were originally installed with each program because such disk-based content cannot be automatically updated and thus becomes outdated rather quickly.

If you yank the network cable from your computer or otherwise disconnect from the Internet for any reason, the Help viewer reverts to the offline Help files on your hard drive — outdated as they may be. All of the Help and How-to content that has been published since the launch of the product is then no longer fetched from the Office Online Web site. This is problematic when you need to look up procedure steps for a program task or feature and the corresponding Help topic exists only online. For example, imagine you’re traveling on business and finishing your big PowerPoint presentation on the plane. Your boss told you to insert an animation or video, but you don’t remember how to do this. If a specific article with the solution to your issue was not published as part of the original “offline Help” files on your Office CD or DVD, you’ll have to wait until you can next connect to the Web.

Tip: To make sure your Office 2007 Help viewer is configured to fetch the latest online content whenever you’re connected to the Internet, click the button in the lower right corner of the Help viewer window (in OneNote 2007 or any other Office 2007 program, press F1) and then choose Show content from Office Online from the popup menu. “Connected to Office Online” means that your Office program will automatically include the latest online content in the Help Table of Contents and in the Search results.