Displays the help topic specified by its ID in the Office Help Viewer or, for help topics that ship with Office, in the Help window of the current Office application.

Syntax

expression.ShowHelp(HelpId, Scope)

expression An expression that returns a IAssistance object.

Parameters

Name Required/Optional Data Type Description
HelpId Optional String The ID of the help topic.
Scope Optional String The namespace registered within the host application.

Remarks

The Assistance property returns an IAssistance object. The IAssistance object exposes methods that allow developers to display help topics in the Office Help Viewer or to display help topics that ship with Office in the Help window of the host application. Developers either pass specific Help IDs to the help system or pass specific search queries. Help IDs have to be explicitly added to the Help file in order for the Help ID to return the help topic.

The following scopes are available within the Microsoft Office applications. By default, the scope is set to the current application's namespace if a Null string ("") is passed as a parameter.

Applications Scope Parameter
All "" (Null string)
Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Designer, Visio, and Word DEV

Example
In the first line in the following example, the client help viewer will display the help topic associated with the ID "xlmain11.chm60407" in the "Excel" namespace. In the second line, the client viewer will remain open and display the help topic associated with the ID "60385", in the "Excel Developer" namespace.

Visual Basic for Applications 
Sub DisplayHelpTopic() Application.Assistance.ShowHelp "xlmain11.chm60407", "" Application.Assistance.ShowHelp "60385", "DEV" End Sub

See also: