How to get and install the Online Help document

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How to install the Online help
At the moment, there is Online Help available in English, German, French, Polish, and Korean. Installing the help file is really simple, but surely can be a big task for a PC novice. I'll try to explain the download and installation procedure in more detail.

The description below applies for XnView on Windows. Users on Mac OSX please read topic 'Online help on Macintosh'.

Online Preview
There's a webbased version of the Online help. If you want to have a glance ath the Help document without downloading it please have a look in topic XnView Help document in the Web.

- Already installed?
Not all people want to download and install all plug-ins, languages, and Online help. For this reason, XnView comes in various packages, which are available on the XnView Download page. Perhaps you have the Online help installed, already, with a quick check you can find out:

1.) Start XnView
2.) Press function key "F1"
If the Online help is installed, it is opened automatically. Then, you're done, already.
If Online help is missing, you will see a message box, telling that you have to download the Online help.

Below follows background info and steps that will help you to install the Online help.

- Archives
The help document for XnView comes as ZIP archive. Generally, archives contain one or several files which are compressed and stored in the archive. Archives are often used in the internet context since files are compressed and reduced in size. This way, download time can be reduced.

- Packer
For packing and unpacking files in an archive you need a so-called Packer. Common packers are WinZIP and WinRAR, and there's many more. I assume that you have WinZIP installed on your computer, if not you can download it on the download page on http://www.winzip.com.

- Downloading and installing the XnView Online help
Now that you have some background and a packer installed, you are prepared.

The archive with the English online help of XnView is named 'help-en.zip' and it contains only one single file which is named 'help-en.chm'. The file 'help-en.chm' is the English help document for XnView.

1. Download the ZIP archive with the XnView Online help from the XnView Download page. In the download dialog, choose 'Open'.

2. Wait till the download has completed.

3. After the download, the Packer software will be started immediately (since you have chosen 'Open' in step 1.). In the Packer software choose 'Extract', and as location you choose the subfolder "help" in the XnView program directory. Typically this is 'C:\Program Files\XnView\help'.

4. Press 'OK' to extract the file.

5. Close/Exit the Packer.

That's it. If everything worked fine you can start XnView and press the F1 function key to open the help document.

Note: Most of this info is taken from topic 'Online Help not available'