Excel 2003 offline help, how to use?

[Neutrino]

First off, damn this forum is ugly isn't it? Trying to post a new question
results in '500 - Internal Server Error' 9 times out of 10. Is this one of
those MS websites that only woks in one or two particular versions of their
own browser? If so does anyone know what those versions are? Maybe there's an
Internet cafe around here where they might have that installed. Anyone know
what the hosting system is so I can be sure to avoid it like the plague?

Now to the reason that brings me here. Does anyone know how to use the
offline help for Excel 2003 in a manner not likely to make me want to kill
myself? Here are the basic problems I'm having with it.

If I click help or press F1 first off the spreadsheet I'm working on gets
rearranged as a table of contents tool window embeds itself into my
worksheet, which I neither asked for nor desired.

Then if I click any entry in the TOC tool window a separate top level
application help window pops up containing the topic I selected.
Unfortunately this separate window has no TOC of its own so I'm left having
to switch between one top level application window and another just to
navigate to a new page in a help document. In fact this separate help window
appears to have no functionality at all beyone a forward and back button.

If there is an index I cannot locate it.

You can undock the TOC tool window and display it alongside the help window,
which is almost useful, but switching between Excel and the help window
sometimes the TOC tool window hides itself and sometimes it doesn't, there
appears to be no pattern that I can discerne to this aspect of its behaviour.

Is there any way to open this help documentation in a remotely useful way,
like with a browser or a chm or pdf viewer, like we used to be able to about
10 years ago back when folks knew how to create a moderately useful UI? I've
searched the Excel installation directory structure looking for chm files and
the like but haven't found anything useable.

Remember this is a query about the _offline_ help system and so relates to
the way the help Excel behaves with the configuration option 'Show content
and links from Microsoft Office Online' unchecked.

 

[Chip Pearson]

First off, damn this forum is ugly isn't it? Trying to post a new question
results in '500 - Internal Server Error' 9 times out of 10.

Don't go through the web interface. It is really just an HTML front
end to the venerable and reliable NNTP USENET services that predate
WWW/HTML by a decade or two. Get a real newsreader client such as
Forte Agent or Gravity. Even Outlook Express (Windows XP and earlier)
or Windows Mail (Vista and later) do a better job than the web
interface.

Now to the reason that brings me here. Does anyone know how to use the
offline help for Excel 2003 in a manner not likely to make me want to kill
myself? Here are the basic problems I'm having with it.

You can fix the windowing problem with a registry key. Close Excel,
then go to the Windows Start menu, enter RegEdit and hit OK.
(Depending on your version of Windows and policies that may be in
place, you may need administrator privileges to modify the registry.)

In RegEdit, use the treeview on the left side of the screen to
navigate to the key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\HelpViewer

Values for that key are listed in the right side pane of the window.

There, if there is a value named IsFloating, change its value to 1. If
there is no such value, create a new DWORD value named "IsFloating"
and give it a value of 1. NOTE: RegEdit works "live" on the System
Registry. There is no Undo and there is no "close without saving".
Once you change a value, it is changed with no automatic way to
restore its original value. Screwing up the registry can cause
problems ranging from minor annoyances all the way up to failure to
boot the machine. If you don't really know what you are doing, don't
go screwing around with the registry.

The bottom line is that MS Help sucks and there isn't really any good
alternative. Use Google to find web pages that answer your question or
use Google Groups Advanced Search to search the USENET archives.


Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Excel Product Group, 1998 - 2009
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on web site)

 

[Neutrino]

Many thanks that helped a lot, now at least I can reliably view the TOC and
the help application at the same time.

I'd love to hear if anyone's ripped this content out to html or pdf though.