>Hi Sylvain.
>
>>I would greatly appreciate a real help file (HTML or HLP style). Searching through a 173 pages Word document is not my idea of a good help reference.
>
>It's my intention to create an HTML Help version of the SDT documentation now that I have a good HTML Help creation tool (West Wind's HTML Help Builder).
>
>This has been one of those tough issues. We used to have an HLP file for SDT, but the amount of effort it took to create both that and a printed manual was too high (as Mike pointed out, there aren't any tools around that make it easy to take one form of documentation and make it into another, other than doing a straight conversion, which ends up creating a poor help file, IMO). I took a survey of SDT users before releasing 5.1, and every single one of them said that they preferred a Word document. So, that's what we did.
>
>You're actually only the second or third person who's raised this issue, which is why there hasn't been a strong push to create an HTML Help file. In fact, most people praise the quality of our documentation. However, I do agree that HTML Help is far superior to a Word document, which is why Stonefield Reports documentation is exclusively provided as an HTML Help file.
>
>Once we've created the HTML Help version, we'll post it as an update on our Web site.
>
>Doug

Hi Doug:

PMFJI - FWIW: I vote emphatically to retain the DOC file, regardless of what you do with HTML help. I USE printed reference manuals -- which are most easily done from a DOC file. I cannot read and retain information from a computer screen as well as kicking back with a printed document and no computer... I also find the vast majority of HTML help -- especially MSDN -- to be very difficult to find what I want, the way I want to look for it. And it is extremely un-friendly to print out in total. As was said by others earlier in the thread, the usefulness of HTML or HLP is highly dependent on the skill of the help file author to put 'see also' and other links for all the ways different persons might find useful... As good as I expect your HTML help file will be, I will probably never find it as easy to use as the printed version or a DOC file which is easily printed in total.

Rob