2.5. Getting Help

GnuCash offers help in many ways. We have already covered the Tip of the Day dialog that gives you helpful hints upon start-up of your GnuCash session. GnuCash also offers an extensive help manual.

2.5.1. Help Manual

Once you have opened GnuCash, you will see the Account Tree window Help menu heading, which opens the on-line manual. The on-line manual is organized by topic, and you can expand each topic into its subtopics.

Topics are listed on the left side. To select a topic or subtopic, click on it, and you should see the text for that topic appear on the right. Use the Back and Forward buttons to navigate through your topic choices, and print any text using the Print button.

2.5.2. Web Access

The GnuCash Help window also acts as a simple web browser, so you can pull up a web site for additional information. You can open any web site under this window by clicking the Open tool bar button and then typing in the URL. Use the Back, Forward, Reload, Stop, and Print buttons as you would in a standard browser.

The GnuCash web site contains helpful information about the program and about any updates to it. It also contains links to the GnuCash mailing lists for developers and users, and you can search the archives of GnuCash mailing lists for discussions on a particular topic. If you don't find the answers you are looking for, you can post your question to the GnuCash user list, and someone on the list will attempt to answer you.

The most updated GnuCash FAQ is also located on the GnuCash FAQ website, and contains answers to the popular questions.

2.5.3. Topic Search

The online manual also provides a search function. To search for a particular topic, click the Search tab at the bottom of the help window and type in your topic in the field provided. Click the Search button to complete your search. A list of choices should appear in the box below, clicking a choice will bring up its text on the right.