Help file

[Anonymous]

I use the Mechanical package and Help works just fine in Mechanical.
However, when using Vanilla AutoCAD, the Help doesn't work. I've been reading all the posts about how Autodesk is switching to an online Help file so they can better keep it updated. I'm OK with that. But it seems to be making problems for the end users who still want a local help file. I followed the instructions to uncheck the box under Options to use the online Help. When I click on Help it says file not found. When I try to point the path in Options to the acad181.chm file locally I get no choice for the file extension except html and there are no html files to pick.
I tried downloading the Help file from Autodesk support. When I opened that, I see a menu on the left listing the usual topics but the window on the right says file not found when I click on a topic. One thing I noticed is that even though Vanilla wants to read an html file, Mechanical still reads a chm file. Also in Mech. under Options, the whole area about Help with the check box for online Help is not even there. For now, I've just added a shortcut to my web browser Favorites to the Help page at autodesk.com. It doesn't make sense to me. FWIW, I'm running Vista x64.

[DouglasLauritsen]

Sorry for the trouble finding the offline help files. For AutoCAD 2011 they are HTML files and are located in the “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2011\Help” like the .chm files you remember from before. The file you want to look at is the “landing.html” or “index.html”. When AutoCAD is configured it is for the local files it is pathed in options to this file “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2011\Help\index.html”. This is in Options, Files tab, Help and Miscellaneous File Names element, Help Location.
Douglas Lauritsen, Autodesk Product Support

[Anonymous]

Yes, yes,   BUT there is no index.html file in that folder (even right after a full AutoCAD 2011 install)

So.... how do I create "index.html" or get acad181.chm to work when I push F1 ?

Changing Options-System and unchecking use online help does not change things.  Editing the Help file path and pointing it at acad181.chm does not work either.

[vladimir_michl]

You can copy the missing files from the installation media - see:

http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/adding-local-autocad-help-to-civil-3d-2011-tip7448

Vladimir Michl, http://www.xanadu.cz