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The Help Navigator is in the left pane of the Help browser. It provides a table of contents, an index, and a search feature to help you find information.
To list the documentation titles and tables of contents for products you installed, click the Contents tab in the Help Navigator pane. To show documentation for only some of the installed products, use the product filter.
When you select a product in the Contents pane (any entry with a book icon
), such as MATLAB® or the Communications Toolbox™ product, a roadmap of the documentation for that product
appears in the display pane. The roadmap includes links to commonly
used documentation sections, including
Function and block references pages
An index of major examples in the documentation
The PDF version of the documentation, which is suitable for printing (this is the only direct access from the MATLAB software to the printable documentation)
In the Contents listing, you can
Click the + to the left of an item to show the first page of that document or section in the display pane and expand the listing for that item in the Help Navigator pane. You can alternatively: double-click the item, press the right arrow key, or press + on the numeric keypad.
Click the - to the left of an item to collapse the listings for that item. You can alternatively: double-click the item, press the left arrow key, or press - on the numeric keypad.
Select an item to show the first page of that document or section in the display pane.
Press * on the numeric keypad to show all subentries for the selection.
Use the down and up arrow keys to move through the list of items.
Icons for entries in the top levels of the Contents pane listing represent the type of documentation so you can quickly find the kind of information you need for a product. See the table for icons in Types of Documentation.
By default, the topic highlighted in the Contents pane matches the title of the page appearing in the display pane. The Contents pane listing is said to be synchronized with the displayed document. This feature is useful if you access documentation with a method other than the Contents pane, for example, using a link in a page in the display pane, or selecting a search result. With synchronization, you know what book and section the displayed page is part of, and where that section fits within the overall book. Note that synchronization only applies to the major headings in a document. For pages that begin with lower level headings, the Contents pane listing does not synchronize.
You can turn off synchronization. To do so, use preferences. See General — Keep Contents Synchronized.
Synchronization applies to the Contents and Demos panes. The page shown in the display pane does not necessarily correspond to the selection in the Index, or Search Results panes. However, if you return to the Contents pane (or Demos pane), the displayed page synchronizes with the Contents (or Demos) pane.
This example illustrates synchronization for after performing a search. When you enter "interactive plotting" in the Search for field, the Search Results pane displays a list of results in the Help Navigator, with the first documentation result selected. The display pane shows the page corresponding to that first result, Plotting Tools — Interactive Plotting. When you click the Contents tab, the tree automatically expands to show MATLAB > Graphics > Plots and Plotting Tools and selects the Plotting Tools — Interactive Plotting entry.
This example illustrates synchronization for demos. When you run
demo('matlab', 'graphics')the Demos pane appears, with the MATLAB Graphics entry selected.
To find specific index entries (selected keywords) in the MathWorks™ documentation for installed products, use the Index in the Help Navigator pane.
Type a word or words in the Enter index term field. As you type, the Index pane displays matching entries and their subentries (indented). It might take a moment for the display to appear. The index is not case sensitive. If there is not a matching entry, it displays the page for the letter that your entry begins with.
The product whose documentation includes the matching index entry is listed next to the index entry, which is useful when there are multiple matching index entries. You might have to make the Help Navigator pane wider to see the product.
Select a blue index entry from the list (where blue represents a hyperlink) to display the page to which the term refers. Multiple links per entry are denoted by numbers in brackets following the term. (Black index entries are headings and do not link to any page.)
When you select an entry, its color becomes red. The page whose entry you selected appears in the display pane, scrolled to the location that the entry references.
To see entries for selected products only, select File > Preferences > Help and set the product filter.
To see entries for all installed products, select File > Preferences > Help, and clear the Enable product filter check box.
For more or different results, type a different term or reverse the order of the words you type. For example, if you are looking for an entry about tab completion for Editor, a subentry does not exist. Instead type tab completion and there is a subentry Editor.
After selecting an entry, search for specified text
in the displayed page using the Find tool, accessible from the Find button
on the display pane toolbar.
When there are multiple matching entries, refer to the product associated with each entry, which appears in the second column of the Index results. You might need to make the pane wider to see it.
For different but related results, try using the Search for field—for instructions, see Search Documentation and Demos with the Help Browser.
See Specifying Colors for the Help Browser for information about changing the color of hyperlinks in the Index.
To look for a specific word or phrase in the documentation or demos, use the Search for field in the Help Navigator.
To limit (or extend) the products whose documentation and demos are searched, set the product filter.
In the Search for field, type the word or words you want to find and click Go (or press Enter or Return). Some techniques for honing your search are
Exact Phrase — Search for an exact phrase by enclosing words in quotation marks, for example, "plot tools". For more information, see Exact Phrases in Search.
Wildcard (Partial Word) — Search for variations of a word, also called partial word searching, by using the wildcard symbol (*) in place of letters in a word, for example, plot* tools. For more information, see Wildcards in Search (Partial Word).
Boolean Operators — Add the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT between search words to include or exclude words. By default, search assumes an AND between all search words and exact phrases. For more information, see Boolean Operators in Search.
The documents and demos containing all of the search words are listed in the Search Results tab. Two sets of results appear: Documentation and Demo. The number of results for each appears in parentheses at the top of the listing, and the total number for both sets of results appears in the lower left corner of the Help browser. Both sets of results have additional columns that list the Product, and for documentation, another column lists the Section. You might need to make the Help Navigator pane wider to see all columns.
Select an entry from the list of results. By default, the first documentation entry is automatically selected. If there are no documentation results, but there are demo results, the first demo entry is automatically selected.
The selected page appears in the display pane with all occurrences
of the search words and exact phrases highlighted, using a different
color for each search word or phrase. Highlights remain until you
view another page or until you click the Refresh button
in the toolbar.
In the display pane, use the Find tool, accessible from the Find button
on the toolbar, to find
a specified word in that page.
Search results are ordered by relevance. For example, for documentation, reference pages that match the search term appear first, followed by titles that contain all search words, with pages containing a single instance of each search word appearing last. Change the display of search results to more easily find the most relevant results:
Sort by column — Change the order of the results by clicking a column heading. For example, click Product to group results by product. Click Title to sort titles alphabetically. A triangular icon indicates the column on which you most recently sorted. Click the heading again to sort by the column but in the reverse order.
After changing the order of results, to see results ordered by relevance, click Go to rerun the search.
Reorder columns — Change the location of a column by dragging its heading to a new position. For example, you can drag the Product column to the middle for documentation results.
Resize columns — Make columns wider or narrower by dragging the separator bar between the column headings. Similarly, make the Help Navigator wider or narrower.
For more results, you can search for the words in the Technical Support database of bug reports, solutions, and notes on the MathWorks Web site by clicking the link at the bottom of the Search results pane.
Function Alternative. From the Command Window, use docsearch to open the Help browser to the Search pane and search for the specified term. For example
docsearch('publish* html')
finds all pages that contain the word publish or its variations, such as publishing, published, and so on, and also contains the word html.
docsearch('"plot tools"')
finds all pages containing the exact phrase plot tools.
For details, see the docsearch reference page.
You can use the wildcard character (*) in place of letters or digits in your search terms. For example, plot* finds various forms of the word plot, such as plot, plots, and plotting. The search term p*t also finds those variations of plot as well as variations of print and part, among others.
You can use multiple wildcards in a word or search term. For example, plot* tool* finds plotting tools, among other terms. The term p*t* tool* finds not only plotting tools, but also pages containing the words path and toolbox.
You cannot use a wildcard with just one letter or digit, nor can you include wildcards within an exact phrase. You cannot begin a word in a search term with a wildcard character. For example, these fail: p*, "plot* tools", plot *ool.
To find a phrase, type quotation marks around it. For example, "plot tools" finds only pages that include plot tools together, but does not find pages that include plot in one part of the page and tools in another part of the page. Specify an exact phrase to reduce the number of irrelevant results. For example, "plot tools" finds about 10 pages in MATLAB documentation, while plot tools finds about 100 pages.
You can specify more than one exact phrase, such as "plot tools" "figure palette" to find pages that contain both "plot tools" and "figure palette". You cannot use a wildcard within an exact phrase.
The search automatically performs a Boolean AND for multiple words. In the example publish* html, it finds all pages that have the word publish or its variations, and the word html.
You can refine the search by including the Boolean operators NOT, OR, and AND between words. The operators must be in all capital letters and there must be a space before and after each operator. The NOTs are evaluated first, followed by the ORs, and then the ANDs.
Example Using Boolean Operators in Search. Type
plot* tools NOT time series
to find all pages that contain the words plot or its variations and tools, but not the phrase time series.
These are the guidelines search uses:
Insignificant words (a, an, the, of) are ignored.
Search is not case sensitive.
Search only finds letters and digits, but not symbols. To find a symbol, look for the word (for example, plus instead of +), use the Index, or see Operators and Special Characters in the MATLAB Functions — By Category. Another option is to search the PDF documentation, which supports searching for symbols — instructions to access the PDF file are included in Printing the PDF Version of Documentation.
Search find words in comments or code for M-file and Model types demos. It finds comments in the M-file help for M-GUI demos. It does not search video demos.
If you search for a function that is used in multiple products (called an overloaded function), the reference pages for all those products are listed. Use the Product column in Search Results to determine the reference page you want.
If there are too many results for the search to be useful, try the following.
Problem | Try These Suggestions |
|---|---|
Too many products | Select File > Preferences > Help and enable the product filter for specified products. For details, see Product Filter. Order results by product — click the Product column in Search Results. If you cannot see the column, make the pane wider. |
Pages are not about search word, but just mention it | Try the Index pane to see more important entries for that search word. |
Too many irrelevant results | Type more than one word in the Search for field. Look for an exact phrase by enclosing words in quotations marks, such as "plot tools". Use Boolean operators (in all capitals), for example, printing AND figures NOT exporting. |
Topic is not relevant | Look at the Section column in Search Results, which provides context for the result. If you cannot see the column, make the pane wider. |
Want to look only within part of a product's documentation | For products like MATLAB, you might want to search only part of the documentation. There is no way to do this in the Help browser. However, you might be able to accomplish that via PDF search. For example, you can search the "MATLAB Getting Started Guide" PDF file, or the "MATLAB External Interfaces" PDF file. Instructions to access the PDF file are included in Printing the PDF Version of Documentation. |
If you want more results, try the following.
Problem | Try These Suggestions |
|---|---|
No results for the product | Be sure the product filter is set correctly. Select File > Preferences > Help and disable the product filter, or at least ensure the products of interest are selected. For details, see Product Filter. |
No results but you know the word should be there | Try variations of the search word by using a wildcard symbol (*). For example, search for preference* to find all pages that contain either the word preference or the word preferences. |
Not enough information | Try searching the Technical Support database of bug reports, solutions, and technical notes by clicking the link at the bottom of the Search results pane. If you are not running the most current version of MATLAB, try looking at the most current version on the Web site. It might contain additional information. For more information, see Accessing Documentation on the Web. |
See Also. Finding Files and Content Within Files, which describes the Find Files tool you use to look for files and content within files, such as comments in M-files or code fragments.
Favorites are bookmarks to pages in the Help browser documentation and M-file type demos.
To designate the displayed page as a favorite (that is, to bookmark it),
The Favorites Editor dialog box opens. You can accept the defaults and click Save, or make changes to the entries:
Use the Label provided, or change it to another term.
Do not change the entry for Callback.
Maintain the Category as Help Browser Favorites so you can access them from the Favorites menu.
For Icon, keep the default Help icon, or choose another.
A favorite is implemented as a MATLAB shortcut, so the dialog box is the same as for the Shortcut Editor.
Favorites from previous releases are not migrated to a new release.
Select the Favorites menu to view the list of pages you previously designated as favorites (bookmarks). Select an entry and that page appears in the display pane.
You can rename, remove, and reorder the list of favorites. Select Favorites > Organize Favorites. For more information, click Help in the Organize Favorites dialog box.
| Help Browser Overview | Viewing Documentation in the Help Browser | |
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