The first time you use the Help feature in Microsoft Office programs, the online Help window appears in a default location and size on your screen. You can change the way the Help window is displayed. After that, when you open the Help window, the settings that you made are maintained.

Each program in Microsoft Office has a separate Help window. This means that when you open the Help window from one program, such as Microsoft Office Word, and then go to another program, such as Microsoft Office Outlook, and open Help, you see two separate Help windows. Microsoft Office maintains unique settings for each of these Help windows. For example, the Help window for Word maintains a different position, size, and Keep On Top state than the Help window for Outlook.

Note Only one setting, the Connection Status button state, is global. This means that no matter which Help window you are working in, changes to this setting affect that Help window and all the other Help windows.What do you want to do?

Resize or reposition the Help window

  1. In the main window of your Microsoft Office program, open Help.

    Keyboard shortcut To open Help, press F1.

    showOpen Help (using the mouse)Do the following in one of these Microsoft Office system programs or tools:

    Access, Excel, PowerPoint, or Word

    • Click Microsoft Office Program Name Help button image, where Program Name is the name of the program you are in, for example, Microsoft Office Word Help.

      Keyboard shortcut To open Help, press F1.

    InfoPath, Outlook, OneNote, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Designer, Visio, or Clip Organizer

    • On the Help menu, click Program Name Help, where Program Name is the name of the program you are in, for example, Microsoft Office InfoPath Help.

      Keyboard shortcut To open Help, press F1.

  2. To resize the Help window, move the pointer over a corner of the Help window until you see the double-headed arrow, and then drag the corner until the window is the size that you want it to be.
  3. To move the Help window, move the pointer to the title bar, and drag the window where you want it.

Keep the Help window on top

The default setting for the Help window is to stay on top of other Microsoft Office program windows. If the setting has been changed so that the window is not on top, or if you don't want it on top, you can adjust the setting to what you want. The Keep on top button on the Help window toolbar is a toggle key that you click to keep Help on top and click again to move a program window on top of the Help window. If the window is currently set to stay on top of other windows in your Microsoft Office program, the Keep On Top button looks like a push pin viewed from the top: button image . If the window is set to say on top of other windows, the ScreenTip text changes to Not on Top, and the button looks like a push pin viewed from the side: button image.

  1. In the main window of your Microsoft Office program, open Help.

    Keyboard shortcut To open Help, press F1.

    showOpen Help (using the mouse)Do the following in one of these Microsoft Office system programs or tools:

    Access, Excel, PowerPoint, or Word

    • Click Microsoft Office Program Name Help button image, where Program Name is the name of the program you are in, for example, Microsoft Office Word Help.

      Keyboard shortcut To open Help, press F1.

    InfoPath, Outlook, OneNote, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Designer, Visio, or Clip Organizer

    • On the Help menu, click Program Name Help, where Program Name is the name of the program you are in, for example, Microsoft Office InfoPath Help.

      Keyboard shortcut To open Help, press F1.

  2. On the Help window toolbar, click the Keep On Top button.

Note The Keep On Top setting keeps the Help window on top of only Microsoft Office programs. It has no effect on other applications that are not part of Microsoft Office. For example, if you open Microsoft Notepad and move the window over the Help window, the Help window does not stay on top.

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