Offline Help files are no more

roscoe

Well-known Member
Joined
Jun 4, 2002
Messages
1,041
Office Version
  1. 365
Platform
  1. Windows
  2. MacOS
For years I could select a function or command in the VBA editor and hit F1 and very useful contextual help would appear. After I received a new computer with an updated version of Office installed I discovered that the F1 command would give me an error stating that I wasn't connected to the Internet (for the record I never have been...the network on which I do code development is isolated from the Interwebs for proprietary security.)

I asked my IT guys to reinstall Office with the help files installed (I assumed that they had inadvertently left them off the standard image from which all new computers are copied). Instead, they simply copied the help files to a folder on my computer. That proved to be less than useful because I have to open them directly and then search for the word of interest, but that presents me 100's of hits through which I have to mine to find the answer because (I suspect) the context is lost. So I called the IT guys back and asked if they could actually reinstall Office with the help files like I originally requested. After a few days they said they couldn’t, saying that internet research indicated that one must have an internet connection for help to work, and that apparently offline help is no longer available.

I thought they were idiots (routinely are actually...) but this was proven correct. With Office 2016 and 365 MS has in fact removed the capability to access help files while offline.

Crippling to anyone who works on code on isolated computers (best example besides myself are DoD computers on a classified network).

#sigh
 

Excel Facts

VLOOKUP to Left?
Use =VLOOKUP(A2,CHOOSE({1,2},$Z$1:$Z$99,$Y$1:$Y$99),2,False) to lookup Y values to left of Z values.

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