As an author, you implement the five fundamental elements of a Help system by correlating your source documents with objects you define in a Doc-To-Help project. This sounds more complicated than it is; if you start with a good outline in Microsoft Word or your HTML files, you're well on your way to producing a full-fledged Help system.
Doc-To-Help defines the elements of a Help system as follows:
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Topics |
Contiguous source document regions delimited by active paragraph styles. |
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Contents |
A hierarchy derived from paragraph style outline levels, similar to Word's document map. |
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Index |
A set of associations between keywords and topics. Keywords can be generated from styles automatically, manually entered by the author, or scripted. |
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Navigation |
Sequential navigation is defined by the order of topics within a document. Subtopic navigation is derived from paragraph style outline levels. |
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Hypertext |
Words or phrases, formatted with an active character style that textually match a single topic, or a set of topics via an index element. |
More:
Understanding the Doc-To-Help Build Options