Online Help
Igor Pro offers extensive online help including:
- Context-sensitive help for menus, controls and icons
- A complete list of shortcuts
- Overview help for each dialog
- Overview help for each area of functionality (graphs, tables, curve fitting, FFTs . . .)
- Reference help for programmers creating Igor procedures
- A complete online PDF manual
Context-Sensitive Help
On Windows, help for each menu item appears at the bottom of the main Igor Pro window. To see help for any dialog item, click the question-mark icon and then the item. To see help for an icon, press Shift-F1 and click the icon.
On Macintosh, choose Show Igor Tips from the Help menu to see help for menus, dialog items and icons.
Dialog Help
Each Igor Pro dialog has a help button which leads to an overview of the dialog.
Help Browser
The Igor Help Browser provides quick access to all kinds of help:
Online Help Files
Igor Pro includes a number of online help files containing overview and reference material. The online help files contain much of the information in the Igor Pro manual but in a form that can be quickly searched within Igor.
Creating Your Own Help Files
Advanced users who create packages of Igor procedures for use by colleagues can create their own Igor help files. User's help files are integrated into Igor and the Igor Help Browser just like WaveMetrics help files. The author of a package can create menu items and buttons that lead to specific topics in the help for the package.
Online PDF Manual
The complete Igor Pro manual is included in Adobe Reader PDF format. The manual is also available as hard copy.
The online PDF manual contains hot linked tables of contents, cross-references and a comprehensive hot-linked index. The online manual is searchable through the facilities provided by Adobe Reader.
The manual is divided into six volumes:
- Volume I - Getting Started
- Volume II - User's Guide Part 1
- Volume III - User's Guide Part 2
- Volume IV - Programming
- Volume V - Reference
- Volume VI - Index
The Getting Started booklet includes a Guided Tour of Igor which is highly recommended as it provides an indispensable introduction to Igor's capabilities.
The Igor Pro manual is also available on our web site.
Help For Programmers
Whether you are writing a quick and dirty routine for your own use or writing a sophisticated package to be shared with colleagues, you will find Igor's online help handy. In an Igor procedure window, you can control-click (Macintosh) or right-click (Windows) on the name of an Igor operation or function and quickly jump to the corresponding help or insert a template.
Last updated: Wednesday, July 22, 2009