Development Environment

Documentation Location--Specifying the help Directory

Use the Documentation location preference to specify where the MATLAB help directory resides for your system.

The help directory contains the online help files used by the Help browser:

• If you elected to install the help files when you installed MATLAB, the documentation location should already be set to point to the help files. If the help files' location changes or you want to access different help files, change the Documentation location for Local or network directory. On Windows, use the ... button to browse your file system to select the new location.
• On Windows platforms, if you did not install the help files during MATLAB installation, the Help browser attempts to find the files on the documentation CDs. You need to specify the Documentation location to be CD-ROM drive. Use the ... button to browse your file system to select the drive's location and select the help directory, as shown in the following example. For PDF files, insert the PDF Documentation CD.

Function Alternative

Use the docroot function to set the documentation location.

For UNIX platforms that do not support Java GUIs, use the docopt function to specify the location of your help directory. The documentation displays in your default system Web browser and demos in a non-Java interface.

Installing Help Files

If you did not install the help files but want to access them from your system rather than from your CD, you can install the documentation using either of two methods. The first method is to use the MATLAB Installer program and only install documentation. See the Installation documentation for your platform for instructions. Note that you cannot install most PDF files this way.

The other method is to copy the following directories and their contents from the CDs to your system's hard drive under $matlabroot.

• help--All files and subdirectories listed below.
  help/base/relnotes and help/base/utils--All files.
  help/mapfiles--All files.
  help/pdf_doc--Each subdirectory and its files for PDF versions of toolbox 
  documentation.
  help/support--All files.
  help/techdoc--All files and all subdirectories for MATLAB documentation.
  help/toolbox/...--Each subdirectory and its files for toolbox 
  documentation.
  

For Japanese documentation, use the jhelp directory and its contents instead of the help directory.

Preferences for the Help Browser

Product Filter--Limiting the Product Documentation