Online Help for Expert Users
Office XP includes a sophisticated and remarkably thorough help system with content for any Office user, regardless of his technical sophistication or experience level. The help system has three interdependent components:
The Help Content Itself, Including an Extensive Index— All the individual Help topics look and behave like Web pages (one-click "hot" links, the back button for navigation, and so on) because they are written in HTML.
A Natural Language-Based Search Engine, Called the Answer Wizard— In some circumstances the Answer Wizard will find relevant information that doesn't turn up in keyword searches.
The Office Assistant Character— This "social interface" to Help information is the single most provocative Office feature: You either love that %$#@! paper clip, or you hate it.
This rich set of interface tools gives you a variety of choices in how you approach the search for answers. You needn't use the Office Assistant to take advantage of the natural-language search engine, for example. You can also use the help system, with or without the Office Assistant, as a quick way to search through a list of keywords. And if you don't find the answer in the online help system, you have several advanced support options.
Tip from 
Of course, sometimes the best interface is no interface. If all you want is answers, without having to deal with dialog boxes or a cartoon character, type a keyword or phrase into the tiny box at the top right corner of any Office program window. (You can't miss it; look for the light gray "Type a question for help" prompt.)
When fully expanded, the Office Help engine includes two panes, as shown in Figure 1.8. The Navigation pane (left) includes three tabs that offer different ways of locating help information. The topic pane at the right displays the contents of the currently selected topic. Two buttons at the top left of the Help window control whether the Navigation pane is visible and how the Help window docks with the program window. In a default Office installation, however, you have to get past the Office Assistant to get to this view.
Figure 1.8. Office XP uses this two-pane hypertext Help engine to display Help topics.
Normally, when you open a Help window, Office resizes the currently active program window and tucks the Help pane into a window just to the right of the program window. When you close the Help window, the program window returns to its full size again. On a high-resolution system, you'll probably appreciate this arrangement, but if desktop space is at a premium, or if you want to keep the Help window open but minimized while you work, you'll need to make an adjustment. Click the Untile button at the top left of the Help window to allow the Help pane to float; click it again to restore the AutoTile configuration.
Using the Office Assistant
The Office Assistant in Office XP gives you simple and quick entrée to Help's Answer Wizard and keyword searches, but only if you want it. By default, this helpful (and occasionally annoying) cartoon character is hidden. You can hide it for good by right-clicking and choosing the Hide button. After a few tries, the Assistant will get the hint and offer to disappear permanently.
To search for help on a topic, click the Office Assistant, type your question or keywords relevant to your topic, and click Search. Assuming there are six or more "hits" associated with your query, the Assistant presents five answers in the first balloon, with a See More button. Click See More, and the Assistant displays the next four hits. Regardless of how many hits the Assistant actually registered, at the end of the nine topics in this list you'll find a button that says None of the Above, Search for More on the Web (see Figure 1.9).
Figure 1.9. The Assistant returns a limited number of hits to your query, even if it finds a wealth of information.
Tip from 
The Office Assistant shows you a maximum of nine hits from the Answer Wizard. Period. If you don't find the answer you're looking for in this set of nine topics, do not automatically jump onto the Web and look for more information. Instead, follow the instructions in the next section to review the full set of answers available from the Answer Wizard—the topic you're looking for is most likely in that list.
Using the Answer Wizard
The Answer Wizard, Microsoft's natural-language Help search engine, lets you pose questions in full sentences or by typing keywords. The Office Assistant, the Answer Wizard, and the Help box at the top of the program window all use the same program code to find answers; the key difference is the number of answers they're willing to cough up in response to your question.
If the Office Assistant is enabled, bringing up the Answer Wizard is a needlessly complex task: Ask the Office Assistant a question, click Search, and choose a Help topic (any topic will do). When the Help window appears, click the Show button to display the Navigation pane. Then—finally—click the Answer Wizard tab. As Figure 1.10 demonstrates, the Office Assistant and the Answer Wizard use the same search results, in the same order, but the Answer Wizard lets you see the entire list.
Figure 1.10. The Answer Wizard displays far more results than the Office Assistant, even though both use exactly the same program code.
Tip from 
If you prefer to work without the Office Assistant, you can disable it without uninstalling it. Right-click the Office Assistant, choose Options, and uncheck the Use the Office Assistant box. With this option disabled, clicking the Help button or pressing F1 takes you straight to Help. (To turn the Assistant back on, choose Help, Show the Office Assistant.) If you frequently use the Answer Wizard, Help Contents, or Index, but you also want the Office Assistant to be readily available, check the Use the Office Assistant box and uncheck the Respond to F1 Key box. By using this option, you can click the Help button to show the Office Assistant or press the F1 key to bypass the Assistant and go directly to Help.
When you type in your query and click Search, the Answer Wizard fills the box marked Select Topic to Display, ranking each hit according to its own internal (frequently inscrutable) criteria: The hit deemed most likely to answer your question appears at the beginning of the list—the one least likely is at the bottom.
Note
The Office Assistant latches on to the nine hits with the highest scores. Because the algorithm frequently fails to recognize the keywords in a natural-language query, those highest scores might go to hits that have nothing to do with your question.
Browsing the Help Contents
A full installation of Office XP splatters dozens of Help files throughout various locations in your Program Files folder. Each one has a complete table of contents, organized by topic in a more-or-less logical order, not unlike the table of contents you would find in a book. (In many cases, asking for Help from within an application opens several Help files, in which case the Help engine combines the contents list from each file to give the illusion of a single table of contents.)
Browsing the Contents pane for information can be cumbersome—pages break at the end of a topic, for example—but it can also be a way to find detailed information you didn't even know to look for. Searching through this list can also help you find information related to a particular topic that might not appear when you use other search techniques.
To search the Contents pane, open a Help window, display the Navigation tab, and then click the Contents tab (see Figure 1.11).
Figure 1.11. Each Office Help topic contains a full table of contents.
Tip from 
If you're browsing the table of contents for a broad overview of any Office program, make it easier by expanding the full table of contents. With the Contents list visible, right-click on the Navigation pane and choose Open All. To collapse the list again, right-click and choose Close All.
Using the Index to Find Keywords
To perform a quick keyword search, or to browse through the Help system's alphabetical index (which resembles the index in a book), open the Help window, show the Navigation pane, and click the Index tab (see Figure 1.12).
Figure 1.12. The Help system's extensive Index will frequently help you find details overlooked by the Answer Wizard.
