Getting Help

Another shared-technology component in Creative Suite is the Adobe Help Center. Instead of using the Macintosh or Windows operating systems to run the Help files, Adobe has created its own Adobe Help Center application that does more than previous types of Help systems.

Adobe Help Center is more than just an electronic convenience. It often includes topics that are not in the PDF user guides, as well as last-minute information that didn't make it into the printed manuals.

Opening Adobe Help Center

You can open Adobe Help Center from the Help menu in any Creative Suite application. The menu lists [application name] Help. Choose this command to launch the Help application. Adobe Help Center appears in its own window (Figure 1-4). You can also launch Adobe Help Center using the Dock (Mac) or Start menu (Windows).

Figure 1-4. Adobe Help Center window

Tip: Acrobat has its own help

Choosing Help > Complete Acrobat Help does not open the Adobe Help Center. Rather, it opens the Acrobat Help file, which is a form of PDF file.

You can also use keyboard shortcuts to open the Help application. Unfortunately, not all applications have a keyboard shortcut assigned, and the ones that do use different keys.

Tip: No Help Key?

We were surprised to discover that Photoshop, Illustrator, and GoLive don't allow you to assign the Help key to invoke Adobe Help Center. Only InDesign lets you use that key.

Adobe Help Center Components

Help Center has three views:

• Product Help is where you search through the Help pages for each of the applications.

• Expert Support is where you can manage your subscription to Adobe Expert Support. This is a paid service that allows you to extend the complimentary support that comes with Adobe products. This service includes extended service hours, priority queuing, direct access to senior technicians, and unlimited toll-free calls. It is useful for those who have critical questions and need immediate help.

• More Resources is where you link to various online support options.

Navigation Controls

Seven navigation controls appear above the Help tabs (Figure 1-5).

Figure 1-5. Navigation controls for Adobe Help Center.

• Back moves you to the previous page in the viewing history.

• Forward moves you to the next page in the viewing history.

• Home takes you to the top-level topics for the current application as shown in the Product menu.

• Add A Bookmark works like the bookmarks in a web browser to save the location of a specific Help page.

• Print lets you print the contents of the right pane.

• Open Preferences opens the preferences for Adobe Help Center. You can then set the language options and preferences for the Expert Support area.

• About Adobe Help Center opens the information about the Help application. Use this to determine which version of Help Center you are using.

If you open Adobe Help Center through an application such as Illustrator or Bridge, it opens to the Product Help view set for that specific application. The Home page shows the top-level topics for the application.

On the left of Product Help you see tabs to choose Contents, Index, and Bookmarks.

• The Contents area lists the Help topics. Use the controllers to open and close the topics. When you find the topic that you need, click it. The information appears in the main Help pane. Most of the Help topic pages have red hyperlinks that send you to related information.

• The Index area gives you an alphabetical list of the Help information. Sometimes it's faster to just move directly to a specific topic using the Index.

• The Bookmarks area allows you to save Help pages for easy reference later on. This is useful if you constantly need to go back to a particular Help topic.

Tip: Change the help font size

There doesn't seem to be any way to make the type larger or smaller in the Help Center. However, if your mouse has a scroll wheel, hold the Command key (Mac) or the Ctrl key (Windows) and scroll up or down to increase or decrease the point size. This is a blessing for those of us over 40 who are losing our eyesight.