Installation of the TwinCAT 3 documentation
The TwinCAT 3 Information System is part of the Beckhoff Information System and contains the complete TwinCAT 3 documentation. In order to be able to use the TwinCAT 3 Information System without Internet connection, you can install it locally on your Engineering PC.
TwinCAT 3 uses the Visual Studio® help system (Microsoft Help Viewer), with can be used online or offline. You can use a default browser or the Help Viewer to display the help system.
The setup for the TwinCAT 3 Information System supports the help systems of Visual Studio® 2010 (Help Viewer 1.0, Help Viewer 1.1), Visual Studio® 2012 (Help Viewer 2.0), Visual Studio® 2013 (Help Viewer 2.1), Visual Studio® 2015 (Help Viewer 2.2) and Visual Studio® 2017 (Help Viewer 2.3). It is available in German and English. The setup is updated on a monthly basis.
The TwinCAT 3 Help already installed can be updated. See Updating the TwinCAT 3 documentation.
The installer can be downloaded from the Beckhoff homepage: https://download.beckhoff.com/download/Software/TwinCAT/TwinCAT3/InfoSystem/
System requirements
The following components must be installed for local installation and application of the TwinCAT 3 Information System:
- TwinCAT 3 Engineering (XAE) including Visual Studio® Shell or Visual Studio® 2010 / 2012 / 2013 / 2015 / 2017 / 2019
(Express versions of Visual Studio® are not supported.) - Visual Studio® Help System
- Visual Studio® 2010: Installation of the help system in Visual Studio® with Service Pack 1
- Visual Studio® 2012 / 2013 / 2015: Help system as an integral part of Visual Studio®
- Visual Studio® 2017 / 2019: Installation of the help system as a component during the installation of Visual Studio®
Installation of the TwinCAT 3 documentation
- TwinCAT 3 and/or a compatible Visual Studio® help system is available.
- All Visual Studio® applications are closed.
- You have downloaded the current installation file TC3-InfoSys.exe for the TwinCAT 3 Information System from the Beckhoff website: https://download.beckhoff.com/download/Software/TwinCAT/TwinCAT3/InfoSystem/
- 1. Right-click the installation file and select Run as Admin from the context menu that opens.
- 2. Follow the instructions of the setup procedure:
- Activate the Complete option if the TwinCAT 3 Information System is to be installed for all compatible and available Visual Studio® help systems and languages.
Please note that the installation can take up a significant amount of disk space, since the TwinCAT 3 Information System is installed for all help systems when several compatible Visual Studio® versions are present.
- Select Custom if you only want to install certain languages for selected Visual Studio® help systems.
- If you select the Custom option, you then have to select the installation components (Features).
The overview shows the languages available for the TwinCAT 3 Information System. Each language contains the available and supported Visual Studio® help systems as a subfeature. The features may vary depending on the system configuration and setup.
You can set the installation for each of the components that are listed. To install the TwinCAT 3 Information System, you have to select at least one language variant from the available languages and one Visual Studio® help system from the available help systems. - A selected feature is marked with a hard disk icon.
- An unselected / excluded feature is marked with a red cross.
- Enable the option Automatic updates for TwinCAT 3 documentation to automatically update the installed TwinCAT 3 Information System via the Visual Studio® help system (this option is available from Visual Studio® 2012).
If you selected a Visual Studio® help system that supports automatic updating in the previous dialog, this option is enabled by default, otherwise the option is disabled automatically.
If this option is enabled, the setup creates a scheduled task “TwinCAT_3_documentation_update...”. This task checks weekly (every Friday between 11:00 and 17:00) whether updates are available for the installed TwinCAT 3 Information System.
- 3. Click Install to install the TwinCAT 3 Information System with the selected settings.
- 4. Complete the installation with Finish.
- The TwinCAT 3 Information System is installed locally. With Visual Studio® 2012 or later versions, an entry for opening and updating the local TwinCAT 3 Information System is created in the Windows Start menu in the Beckhoff > TwinCAT3 Information System folder.
- The Option “Yes, check for program updates (Recommended) after the setup completes.” searches for updates of the installed TwinCAT 3 documentation if an internet connection is available.
See also: