Online Help

The Online Help pane provides a built-in web browser to explore dynamically generated Python documentation on installed modules—including your own—rendered by a pydoc server running in the background.

Spyder Online Help panel on the index page, a list of builtin modules

Using the Online Help

Enter the name of the item you’d like documentation on in the Module or package field, or the Get field, to load its doc directly. Or, if you’re not sure of the name of the object you want help on, or are looking for a specific keyword, use the Search field to get a list of results. You can view and re-run previous searches with the drop-down menu or the Down Arrow key in the Module or package field, navigate previous pages with the forward and back buttons (top left, left and right arrows), and go back to the homepage with the home button (house icon top left) or the Module Index link top right.

Perform a realtime search within a page’s content with the Find button (magnifying glass icon top left) or Ctrl-F, navigate through matches with the Up and Down buttons, and make matching case sensitive with the Aa button. You can use the zoom in/out buttons (- and +, top right), to change the font size to suit your preferences. Finally, to cancel searching or page loading, click the stop button (red X, top right) and to reload the help content you’re seeing to the most current version on disk (such as when you change your package’s documentation), hit the refresh button (circular arrows, top right).