Help Files CS4

How can i access Help files in CS4 if i do not have internet access?

When i click Help or F1, it will launch Adobe Help in a browser but have no help information accessible when no internet access is available. I'm not sure how to force offline help.

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Flash CS4 Help File Offline What Happened to Tag Defintions Showing UP?????

Ok I know I can set the help system to browse offline however
this doesn't work correctly for any less then ActionScript 3. When
you highlighted a word in the past such as "null" it use to pull up
the word and the info in all the books. Now all I see is a web
browser that doesn't do this for me. I mean who sits there at
adobe's end and thinks up of ways to slow someone down like this??
How can you remove the core help quick linking from the program.
Number 1 not everyone is on AS3 and some of us still have to update
AS2 code.
Bigspace ships has an air application that installed AS3 flex
reference but again useless unless you are on AS3. Has anyone found
another way to get this old school functionality to work on
CS4???

Jay Armstrong here. I’m one of the writers who works on
the Flash docs.
Regarding this comment and the many others in other threads
that have added important details about the issues with the help
workflow, and in particular the ActionScript help workflow: We hear
your pain and we are working to implement solutions to these
issues.
I understand that this new help workflow is more painful than
in CS3 when you had the Help right in its own panel in the product.
Here’s some background:
The implementation of Help within the Flash Help panel prior
to CS4 required that *all* the Help files be installed on the local
drive with the product, resulting in some issues that we tried to
address in CS4. Including Help on the installation disc caused
issues including:
- Required that Help be completed much earlier for
localization and end-game testing.
- Resulted in static Help files that had been completed early
in the development cycle, sometimes not accounting for last minute
UI or other changes.
- A long install process.
- Crowded the installation disc.
These aren't meant to be full explanations of why we made the
changes, but just some background as to some of the things we were
thinking about. Clearly the decisions we came to weren't the right
ones for many users. We are intent on making things better.
Moving Help online makes it possible to update Help on an
ongoing basis, allows users to comment on and embellish the Help,
and allows us to add links from the help out to new articles,
tutorials, videos, and code samples on adobe.com and throughout the
Flash web community. One of you rightly pointed out that the Adobe
Updater could have been used for some of this, but I believe that
the updater would have required much more rigorous certification by
us of any update packages and the update/install process for each.
We actually are updating the online help files very frequently, so
this process would have been a major barrier to these updates.
We’ve had a struggle about how to deliver the Flash
Help for a long time, as we have a lot of users who have been quite
vocal about not liking the Help panel consuming space within the
Flash window as well as users who really want it there so they
don’t have to leave the IDE.
Having said all that, I still totally understand what
you’re saying about losing your code, glance, code, glance,
code workflow. As you probably know, we’ve been getting a lot
of feedback about this, along with other issues that online Help
has caused. We are actively looking at ways of solving these, but
the Help-in-a-browser issue a difficult problem, as this aspect of
the Help implementation is baked fairly deep into the CS4 product.
Since CS4 shipped, we have implemented solutions to some of the
issues with Help raised by users, such as allowing you to select
the default destination of F1 (though Flash CS4 always went to the
actual Help system rather than the Flash Help and Support page,
which is what these users wanted in other products). I just
don’t know if there will be a solution in the CS4 time frame
for viewing Help within Flash itself. As noted in this thread,
there are a few independent developers working on non-browser help
viewers, such as Jamie Kosoy, Technical Director at Big Spaceship,
whose AIR application for the CS4 Language Reference docs is
available at
http://labs.bigspaceship.com/2008/12/09/air-app-as3-language-reference/.
We knew that people use the AS3 Language Reference a lot, so
we did install a local, abridged version of that with the product.
You only see it when not connected to the internet or if you
disable online connections as described earlier in this thread, and
it still opens in a web browser and still has the same navigation
interface as the online version. You can also download a local copy
of the AS Reference, which does get updated periodically and can be
viewed locally regardless of the state of your internet connection,
but it also is all html and opens in a web browser. As previously
noted, the download is available here:
http://help.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flash/10/ActionScript3LangRef.zip.
I know this thread started off with AS2 concerns, and we hear
those too.
In some of the other threads out there about the Help, people
have raised issues about the contents navigation in the CS4 version
of the ASLR as well. We are listening to all these issues and
actively working on solutions that will address these questions.
We’d really like to give you better control over whether you
see online or local content, whether you see it inside the IDE or
in a separate application, etc.
I know that you are all really frustrated at some of these
help changes, and so I want to say how much we appreciate your
feedback. I’m sorry that my reply doesn’t give you the
magic bullet that you are understandably hoping for.
-Jay

CS4 Design Standard Help Files

Help files for all CS4 Design Standard programs are not available. The error message states the help files were not installed or the installation has been damaged. Please reinstall. I have reinstalled CS4 and also uninstalled/reinstalled CS4 but get the same error message. The help files have been loaded on my C drive but the CS4 programs are not able to locate and/or open them. I have also removed my anti-virus software and reloaded CS4 but still have the same problem.

This was reported by at least one other user shortly after CS4 was released. In his case, if I remember, he installed using UK English, and the help system was looking in the US_En folder, which was empty.
If you are using something other than US English, try taking a look through the common files help directories and see if the files are actually there under your language folder. Copying them to the en_US folder might solve your problem.
Peter

Can't get help files after install of CS4 Standard

The programs seem to be working fine, but whenever I click on the specific Help link the programs say there was an error in installation and I should re-install (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat) How do I get to access Help?
Also, with PsCS3 the license allowed installation on 2 computers (my desktop and my notebook) but it is unclear if this applies to Creative Suite CS4. Can you clarify before I try installing on my notebook?

Well, there *is* a way to sidestep this without having to reinstall the whole suite on Windows XP (Vista too, most probably). However, this manual solution might be a chore to some since you'd have to do this for *each* of the help volumes within C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\.
I'll just detail what I did with the folder containing the Photoshop help files. I believe that with the others it should be a similar procedure, but I haven't tried it yet.
Within C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\Photoshop\11.0\ look for these two text files: helpmap.txt and helpmapBaseUrl.txt.
MAKE BACKUPS OF THOSE TWO FILES BEFORE MAKING ANY CHANGES (and, like me, ask permission from your boss before you do anything like this :) ). Save the files somewhere safe so you can restore them if what I suggest below doesn't work for you.
======================
[Step 1]
It looks like helpmapBaseUrl.txt tells PS where to look for the Help files, and those of you with the "problem" will probably find that it contains this address:
"http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0"
which is why (AFAIK) pressing F1 takes you to the Web help.
Delete "http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0" and paste the path to the PS help files in your machine, which (if you installed it in C:) should be something like:
file:///C:/Program%20Files/Common%20Files/Adobe/Help/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/
Save helpmapBaseUrl.txt.
==========================
[Step 2]
Open helpmap.txt. Look for these two entries:
AH_ION search.html?AH_ION=true Ion Search Page
AH_HOME WSC04AFC0E-5BF5-4c2f-8A32-BEDE16E9DF95.html Home
Delete everything to the right of "AH_ION," copy WSC04AFC0E-5BF5-4c2f-8A32-BEDE16E9DF95.html (the HTML file listed to the right of "AH_Home") and paste it beside "AH_ION," so it now looks like this:
AH_ION WSC04AFC0E-5BF5-4c2f-8A32-BEDE16E9DF95.html
Save helpmap.txt.
============================
[Step 3]
Restart PS. Now, pressing F1 should open the local help files in your browser. Also, all the "How to's" should open using the local files as well. Pat yourself in the back.
Maybe there is an easier way to do this, I don't know. But so far this works for me.
I hope some of you find this helpful.

CS4 - no longer local help files???

I recently upgraded to CS4, and it seems that when I try to access the help system it goes off to a web site instead of using local help files on my hard disk. This is extremely annoying because:
1. I often work on airplanes and other places where Internet access is just plain not available.
2. Accessing remote servers over the Internet is painfully slow. I feel like I'm waiting for paint to dry when I access help.
Is there a way to get CS4 to put its help system on my local hard disk?

Be advised that the following will also disable other online apps such as Kuler.
To disable access to online services using the Connections panel:
Open your Adobe CS4 application.
Choose Window > Extensions > Connections. This will open the Connections panel.
Click the Connections panel menu flyout and then choose Offline Options.
Select Keep Me Offline.
Click OK.
Torkel

CS4 Help files

I do not get any action on either the help button or with the F1 key. Any suggestions. Did I do something wrong during installation?

Yes, you're right Mike... It would be more comfortable to reach helps within applications.
In fact, I looked a bit to files and registry. And I found a way to do this. You can reach help subjects from application (Premiere Pro, After Effects e.t.c.) menus or pressing F1 key.
1) Open main help folder:
(C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help
2) Find and open your applications folder in your insallaion language
For Premiere Pro (English)
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\PremierePro\4.0
3) You'll find a text file named "helpmapBaseUrl.txt" in this folder. This text file has one line content, the url of the help file. And this url points the on-line help files at Adobe site. You can simply change this URL to point the help files in your hard disk.
For doing this, open this text file in notepad.
It has the line
"http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/4.0"
for Premiere Pro.
Change this line to:
"file:///C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\PremierePro\4.0\index.html"
(May be this forum page will separate long lines. Ignore it! You must write the path at one single line... There is no 'end-of-line' or carriage return. You can copy from above lines, without quotation marks of course.)
... and finally save this text file, overwriting original. It's done. Now you can use your F1 Key or menu for help files in Premiere.
That was for Premiere Pro. You can use same method for After Effects, Photoshop or Other CS4 applications.
For After Effects:
Fint the text file named "helpmapBaseUrl.txt" in folder:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\AfterEffects\9.0
Open this text file.
You'll see the original help url as "http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0"
Change this line to:
"file:///C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US\AfterEffects\9.0\index.html"
(There is no end-of-line or carriage return again. Write all in single line. You can copy from above lines, without quotation marks of course.)
Save the text file overwriting original. It's done for After Effects.
You can reach every help subject on help menu instantly from your hard disk now.
I showed the way for Premiere Pro and After Effects. But you can use same method for other CS4 applications if you want.
One last note: I supposed your applications on standart "C:\Program Files" main folder. If it's not, you have to change the paths according your main installation path.

Lost help files for whole Suite CS4 Web Premium

I upgraded my home PC to a new motherboard & CPU. Did NOT have to reinstall Windows Pro 64bit OS...everythign seems to be OK..except Adobe Web Premium?
Two issues: 1) I did NOT deactivated CS4 prior to the MB & CPU upgrade...system did start up and all CS4 programs run OK ? Did I use up an activation here and how do I tell.....?...and if so can I get it back ?
2) All my CS4 application help files are gone...I either get a message saying can't find/reinstall CS4...or simply nothing happens at all when I click Help or F1 ?
Any ideas on solving either/both of these issues will be greatly appreciated?
Thanks...TRinAz
Message was edited by: trinaz

Thanks for the quick reply...I have 1 last procedure in my upgrade process and that's to clone the original HDD (with CS4 on-board and still the boot drive) to a new Sata3 drive already formated and installed in the box.
Will a clone operation affect the activation issue with CS4...and if so...should I "deactivate" CS4 prior to the cloning operation ? The original C: dive will be wiped and used for backup/storage.
Will I still then have 2 installs on my license...with only the new Sata3 installation to date ?
The only help file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Help\en_US is the PhotoShop 11 Help which appears to be complete...however I still get the error in the attached help.jpg ?
Thanks...TRinAz
Message was edited by: trinaz

How to use online help instead of local help files?

I know that if I am looking for help in Adobe Acrobat Pro 9, I can hit F1 or go to Help -> Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Help...
However, I do not like that doing that sends me to the limited help files that are stored on my local drive. I would like that link to default to the online help.
Is there any way to do that?
The real reason I want to do this is because I use Mozilla Firefox and tightly control the cookies that sites save on my computer. For sites that I trust, I simply add them to the whitelist. However, I am unable to add file:///C:etc.etc. to my whitelist, so I have to approve 5-8 cookies every time I go to another page within the help files. This is extremely annoying.
In regards to this local help default over internet help, Adobe has said:
The Help menu within the product opens local Help, a subset of the content available in online product Help. Because local Help is not as complete or up-to-date as online product Help, Adobe recommends that you use the PDF version of product Help if you want to stay off-line.
But what if I don't want to use the "subset of the content available in online product Help" and prefer to simply go to the online product Help just like every other Adobe CS4 product?

You could add a custom menu item to the Help menu that executes the following line of code:
// Acrobat 9 Pro Help
app.launchURL("http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/index.html");
See this tutorial for more information: http://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2006/add_custom_menu_items

How to install help file into dw?

I'm now using DW CS4. When I look up into the help (Shift+F1) system, I find the help information is not adequate. Might I install any new help file into it?
Thanks a lot.

Hi,
to show you the menu in my DW CS, here a screenshot, after "Edit" > "Keyboard Shortcuts":
Hans-Günter

Where are the help files? (CS5)

I am studying CS5 but I can't find help files or tutorials... is everything online now?
Where should I go for help?

I don't have CS5, but hopefully they still have a somewhat obvious "Help" option in the top menu bar. You can also probably find them by searching Google using "Flash CS5 Help" As of CS4, the help documentation is not provided with the software.

Where Can I Download Offline Help Files for Creative Cloud?

The heading says it all. I am not always connected to the internet and, in any event, I find the on-line help annoying and tedious. I can only find PDF help files for CS4, where can I get them for CS6?

That is not off-line help, it is simply a PDF file full of links to on-line resources. It is next to useless. I want to be able to look at teh help document and get answers to questions, not links to answers.

Can't Find the Help Files

I installed the downloaded CS4 components and have yet to figure out how to get the help files installed.
At present every time I click on any of the installed components' help file button all I get is the web site with useless information.
Has anyone been able to find it?
Cheers,
Michael

You don't need to know
all the terms. It is usually best to start with fewer keywords and only add more keywords if there are too many results.
A search on the keyword "yellow" answers you question in the first hit.
Cheers
Eddie
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Help files missing after upgrade to PS CS5

Upgraded from CS4 to CS5... reinstalled in a second time... still unable to load help files... second install, same messages saying ...AIR, Media Player and Help did not install...
Help files in Lightroom 3 also did not load..

Solved problem by finding a folder in CS5 Photoshop set up files.. under the folder payloads.. and installing setup file for Adobe Help from there.. also installed updates from Adobes website for Media Player and Air

Error launching adobe help application CS4

When using F1 or Help -> Photoshop help, I get the notification: There was an error lauching the Adobe Help application.
When I do the same in Illustrator I get no respons at all.
Indesign gives the message: Adobe help viewer is not installed.
I just reinstalled and updated CS4. Still get this messages.
Some one any idea how to solve this problem?
Thanks
Aart Dijkzeul

I too am having this problem. I followed the directions to check to ensure that the help files were in the folder stipuated and they were. Is there anything else I can do?
I have CS4 64 bit running on Windows 7/64 bit

Crash on search function for HTML Help file (.chm) when connected to a Visual C++ application

Crash on search function for HTML Help file (.chm) when
connected to a Visual C++ application
I use the RH_ShowHelp API command to connect a HTML Help file
(.chm file generated by RoboHelp Word X 5) to my Visual C++
application. My application is able to call up this HTML help file
in context-sensitive mode and everything is working great in the
Contents and Index panels EXCEPT when I click on List Topics (after
I enter a KEYWORD for search) in the Search panel.
I got an error that said “Unhandled exception in
xxxx.exe.(HHCTRL.OCX):0xC00000FD: Stack overflow”
I am able to execute this .chm file by itself and the search
function works well in this case. I am using HHActiveX.dll that is
created on 2/23/04. Is this the correct version?? Any advice what
to do here??

Hi agschin and welcome to the RH forums. The hhactivex.dll
file is not used by the search function so you can rule that our.
Have you tried recompiling and seeing if the problem still happens?
You can also start the Bug Hunter feature in RH - View > Output
View and then select the Bug Hunter button - and see if that throws
up any clues.

Help Files CS4

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