IDL Help and Documentation

Help

is available from the IDL menu. Under Windows it uses the standard Windows help mechanisms. In particular the 'Index ...' and 'Search ...' mechanisms are very useful.

PDF Documentation

is available through the PDF documents IDL Getting Started (an extended version of IDL Basics), and IDL Online Guide; the latter contains links to all other relevant PDF documents.

• Under Windows, these are available from the 'Start -> Programs -> RSI -> IDL 5.4' menu.
• Under Linux / Unix, one finds the the PDF documents in the subdirectory docs, under the directory $IDL_DIR, where IDL is installed (this is often /usr/local/rsi/idl). The filename onlguide.pdf corresponds to the IDL Online Guide. and using.pdf corresponds to Using IDL. Here is the corresponding directory on ursa.astro.ku.dk.

Here are some particularly important documents, or sections of documents (to reduce the download size if you are accessing these from home):

• Getting Started with IDL (4 MB PDF) -- or IDL Basics (older, 1.5 MB PDF)
• Defining Procedures and Functions (in the on-line Help this is a section of the Building IDL Applications book).
• The IDL HandiGuide.

Local docs

IDLDE startup and preferences hints