Missing Help files

[Bookish]

I have all three Affinity programmes, running on a Windows 11 laptop. All are v. 2.5.5. Several versions ago the Help files became inaccessible from the F1 button and the Help button on the toolbar in Publisher, but not in the other two; when I hover the cursor over the taskbar icon it shows an empty thumbnail, but no Help window opens - not even an empty one. (Probably wrong jargon but I hope it's clear.) How can I get the Help files back in Publisher, please?

[mopperle]

Works normal here, with F1 or via the Help menu. This is what I get e.g. in Designer:

Did you try a fresh install, using the exe installer (in case you used the MSIX installer before)?

[MikeTO]

Hi @Bookish, you could also try:

• Drag the application window to the right side and then the left side - is the Help window opening underneath?
• Start Affinity with Ctrl held down and select "Reset Document and Window States". If the Help window is opening off screen, this would reset it.

While you sort this out, note that you can access Help at any time by visiting this website: https://affinity.help

[NathanC]

Hi @Bookish welcome to the forums,

Additionally, you could try just a standard removal and re-install of Photo/Designer to see if that resolves the problem, as the help guide content is loaded from the installation directory so this should refresh the folders.

You could also try deleting the 'help.dat' file which controls where the help window is positioned on your display to reset it, this is located in different directories dependant on your app install method, but you can get here via Windows 'Run' command (WIN + R):

MSIX

%USERPROFILE%/.affinity/Designer/2.0/settings

%USERPROFILE%/.affinity/Photo/2.0/settings

MSI/EXE

%APPDATA%/Affinity/Designer/2.0/settings

%APPDATA%/Affinity/Photo/2.0/settings