Using a How-To Topic

Before you make your own how-to topics, it's a good idea to see how the existing ones work. Photoshop actually has two kinds of how-to topics. The first kind opens up in the Adobe Help Center and looks just like the rest of the Help files. The second kind opens up in your default Web browser; you find these at the bottom of the Help menu. When you create your own how-to, it appears with the browser-based how-to topics at the bottom of the Help menu. Let's try one of each kind.

First, let's look at the kind of topic that opens in the Adobe Help Center. In Photoshop, choose Help > How to Paint and Draw > To Customize a Brush. The Adobe Help Center opens to the topic about brush options (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1. A built-in how-to topic opens in the Adobe Help Center.

Now let's look at the other kind of how-to. In Photoshop, choose Help > How to Create How Tos. Your default Web browser opens and displays a page covering that topic (Figure 5.2). When you make your own how-to topics, they'll open in the default Web browser just like this topic did.

Figure 5.2. A custom how-to topic opens in a Web browser.