The images that you see in the topics are always retrieved from the HelpServer database. If you create topics with images you can directly insert the image files from your file system. These are then copied to the HelpServer database. Once they are on the database the images on your file systems aren't used anymore. In other words, HelpServer does not access your own file system.

Besides loading images from your file system you can also paste an image from the clipboard. This is a very convenient approach in cases where you can capture images. For example assume you are working on books about animals and you have found a nice image of a falcon on the Internet. Just copy it to the clipboard.

Copying an image to the clipboard

Next, you put the cursor in the topic where you want the image and hit the "Paste" button or right click and select "Paste" (NOT "Insert").

Pasting an image from the clipboard.

On the popup window you specify a short description. This description is used to recognize the image if you would need to insert it from the project gallery.

The image is grabbed from the clipboard and inserted in the database. A link is created in the topic at the paste position.

Image pasted from the clipboard

The image copy/paste-from-clipboard method is highly recommended to submit updated images in the Workbench without duplicating them. Assume for example you want to replace the current image of the falcon with a nicer one. Just capture or copy the new image to the clipboard.

Copying another image to the clipboard

Put the cursor on the image (just click it, you will need to see a black surrounding rectangle) and hit the "Paste" button" or right click the image and select "Paste".

Replacing an image

Next, you confirm the replacement of the original image.

Updated image

The original image on the database is overwritten by the image on the clipboard. You can also use this approach to overwrite or update an image that you have previously inserted from your file system.

Here are some guidelines when working with images.

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Each time you insert an image file from your file system a new image object is created in the HelpServer database, even if it is the same image file.

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Each time you paste an image from the clipboard in a blank space of a topic, a new image object is created in the HelpServer database. Only when you paste over an existing image, the image object in the HelpServer database is overwritten.

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Should you copy an image in the HelpServer Workbench and paste it in another topic, you do not duplicate it. You actually copy/paste the link to the image.

So, the best approach is to insert or paste an image once. If you would need the same image in other topics you do this by the copy/paste of HelpServer Workbench (you actually copy/paste the image link) or you can locate the image in the project gallery and re-insert it. If the image is changed, you re-capture/copy it to the clipboard and paste it over the image in the Workbench. The changes to the image are reflected everywhere the image link is used. But you might want to check the image link properties in case the new image size is changed.