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Q85676: Windows Help and Help Compiler Capacity Limits

Article: Q85676
Product(s): Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit
Version(s): WINDOWS:3.1
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kb16bitonly
Last Modified: 06-NOV-1999

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) 3.1 
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SUMMARY
=======

The following lists the limits of the Windows Help application, version 3.1.
These limits are subject to change in future versions.

Paragraph size(1): approximately 32,000 bytes
Topic title string length: 127 characters
Topics per RTF source file: approximately 32,700
Topics per help file: 42,000,000
By-reference bitmaps per help file : 32,767
Help file size: approximately 2,157,000,000 bytes (2 gigabytes) Topic footnote
character limit: 1023 characters

Keywords per help file: limited only by file size
Keyword length: 255 bytes
Topics per keyword(2): < 800
Browse sequence length: limited only by the number of topics

Bookmarks per help file: limited only by file size
Annotations per topic: 1
Annotations per help file: 32,767

History list length: 40 topics
Text that can be copied to clipboard: limited only by machine memory

Macro length: 512 characters

Main windows per topic: 1
Secondary windows per topic: 5

1. The maximum paragraph size includes graphics pasted into the RTF source.
  Therefore, each pasted graphic is limited to 32,000 bytes. To work around
  this limitation, import large bitmaps by reference.

2. Performance degrades for files with more than several hundred topics. The
  Search dialog box displays a maximum of 400 topics.

Additional query words: no32bit 3.10 HC HCP.EXE HC31.EXE WinHelp

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Keywords          : kb16bitonly 
Technology        : kbAudDeveloper kbWin3xSearch kbSDKSearch kbWinSDKSearch kbWinSDK310
Version           : WINDOWS:3.1

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