How to exclude a topic from the help system?

The Hidden setting hides the topic in the TOC only

1.) If you enable the Hidden setting in the topic's properties, it only hides that topic in the Table of Contents, but it does not exclude the topic from the help system.

Therefore, in the Web Help, HTML Help, and ePub formats, the hidden topic can still be accessed from hyperlinks, search results, and keyword Index.

2.) When you compile your help project to the Printed Manual, PDF, or MS Word format, HelpSmith first builds the Table of Contents (TOC) section and then adds the topics which are included to the TOC to the document's body.

Remark: Please note that in printed documentation the titles in the TOC section must correspond to the titles in the document's body. For example, this is important for the numbering which applies to the TOC items.

How can I completely exclude a topic in all output formats?

Use Build Tags to exclude topics

You should use Build Tags which allow you to exclude a topic in a specific output format, or in a specific version of your help file or document.

1. In the Project Manager pane, select the topic to edit its Build Options.
   Remark: To select multiple topics, click on the topics while holding down the Ctrl key.
2. Right-click on the selected topics, and then, in the popup menu, click Build Options.
3. In the Build Options dialog, select (check) the Build Tags the should include (or exclude) the selected topics during the compilation process.
4. Click OK.

For example:

For example, if you want to exclude a topic from the PDF document, you can set the topic's Build Options as shown below:

For more details on including/excluding topics, you can visit this topic.

If a topic is hidden, can HelpSmith remove hyperlinks linking to that topic?

Removing hyperlinks to excluded topics

In HelpSmith, you can use the "Remove Dead Links" option that will automatically convert hyperlinks to the excluded topics into regular text.

1. On the Project tab, in the Project group, click Project Options.
2. In the Project Options dialog, go to the General|Build Tags section.
3. In the Dead Links box, select the Remove dead links option.
4. Click OK.

After you compile your documentation (click: Project|Compile), HelpSmith should automatically remove the hyperlinks to the topics which were excluded by Build Tags.

For more options on processing "dead links", please click here.