Tips on using the documentation

Tips on using the documentation handbooks:

• Searching
• Browsing
• Asking where documentation is located
• Saving for off-line use

Searching the Documentation handbooks: Narrow your search to the Documentation handbooks by:

• From any page, leave the search field empty and click the "search" button. Click the "Advanced search" option (requires you to be logged in).
• Enter your text in the "Containing any of the words" field (or "Containing the phrase" as appropriate).
• Ignore the "Only in the category(s)" taxonomy filter.
• Use the "Only of the type(s)" checkboxes. Check "Book page" to search the Documentation handbooks.
• Similarly, checking "Forum topic" will narrow the search to the forum discussion boards.

Browsing the documentation handbooks:

• Handbooks overview will give an idea of where to start. Requests for additional help should go to the forums or issue queues, not the handbook page comments.
• Module pages for core or contributed tell how to apply the modules.
• Site recipes in the Customization and theming handbook describe common theming tasks.
• Snippets in the Customization and theming handbook describe how to use PHP to customize a module or theme.
• Tutorials are scattered about the handbooks; they tend to be longer instructions that illustrate one way, usually not the only way, to accomplish a task.
• Troubleshooting FAQ has solutions to common problems.

Asking the location of documentation (when you can't find it) can be done by:

• Posting a topic in one of the support forums.
• Asking on the IRC (chat) channel #drupal-support.

Saving copies of any the documentation handbooks for off-line use can be accomplished as follows:

1. From the handbooks tab, go to the top level page of one of the handbooks.
2. Click "Printer-friendly version" link at the bottom of the page. This link is at the bottom of the main content area of book pages, above any comments that may have been added. [Note: You MUST be logged in to see this option]
3. If you know the node number of the book page, then it has a path in the form "node/14279", and you can substitute "book/export/html/14279" to get the printer-friendly version.
4. The current page and its sub-pages will be output in a clean format with no headers, footers, or side blocks.
5. Comments to book pages are not included in the printer-friendly copies.
6. Save the content for off-line use, either by printing, by saving as a .pdf, or saving as HTML.
7. This works for sub-sections of a book as well, but there is no way to output all five books at once.