microsoft help is useless ?

[Matthew Nicoll]

I need a tutorial on using MS-Office help!
I have developed applications using VB and VBA on and off for years.
With each new version of MS-Office, I find I am less and less likely
to be able to find the information I need.
If I need information on a particular property or method of an object,
how do I find it? Pressing F1 is absolutely useless now.
Searching in the MS help system rarely helps.

E.g. I want to find out all about the "Text" property of the combo box
object of a MS-Access Form. Where and how do I find it?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I need a tutorial on using MS-Office help!
I have developed applications using VB and VBA on and off for years.
With each new version of MS-Office, I find I am less and less likely
to be able to find the information I need.
If I need information on a particular property or method of an object,
how do I find it? Pressing F1 is absolutely useless now.
Searching in the MS help system rarely helps.

E.g. I want to find out all about the "Text" property of the combo box
object of a MS-Access Form. Where and how do I find it?

Sometimes the best bet is to hit F2 and poke around the object model.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I need a tutorial on using MS-Office help!
I have developed applications using VB and VBA on and off for years.
With each new version of MS-Office, I find I am less and less likely
to be able to find the information I need.
If I need information on a particular property or method of an object,
how do I find it? Pressing F1 is absolutely useless now.
Searching in the MS help system rarely helps.

E.g. I want to find out all about the "Text" property of the combo box
object of a MS-Access Form. Where and how do I find it?

You're right, the Help -- and especially its indexing -- has been
deteriorating with each release since at least Office 2000. The help
is on MSDN, though, and it's well indexed by Google. For your example,
<http://www.google.com/search?q="text+property"+"combo+box"+site%3Amsdn.microsoft.com>
turns up a number of hits including
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa202273(office.10).aspx>. It
isn't as nice as just hitting F1, but it's reliable.

 

[Matthew Nicoll]

Thanks Jay.
Its nice to know its not just me!
I'll try your suggested approach on Google.
.... Matthew