Installation and troubleshooting
Start with the desktop version: it is the one available today. Below are its installation, the add-in's for when it ships, and the answers to the things that actually go wrong in a school. If none of it fits, one email reaches the people who drew the figures.
Support is by email at myhama@hotmail.com. We answer licensing and installation questions ourselves; we do not teach Word, and there is no telephone line.
Installing the add-in (in development)
These steps apply when it ships: Microsoft 365 or Word 2019 and later, on Windows, Mac or the web.
The version to install today is the classic template - jump to its installation.
Open the add-in from Word
In Word, choose Insert > Get Add-ins and search for Science Teacher Helper. If your school manages add-ins centrally, an administrator can deploy it from the Microsoft 365 admin centre instead and it will appear on its own.
Open the task pane
Open the Science Teacher Helper tab on the ribbon and click Show diagram library. The pane docks on the right.
Place the cursor and pick a drawing
Put the cursor where the figure belongs, choose a subject or type in the search box, then click the drawing. It lands at the cursor as editable shapes.
Take the trial, and buy when you are ready
The first time you insert, the pane starts its 7-day trial on that computer and shows how many days are left. Once it ends, paste the licence key from your order email into the panel and inserting carries on.
Deploying to a whole school? The manifest and the deployment steps are in the school licence section - one administrator action covers every teacher you name.
Installing the classic template
Best for offline classrooms, exam machines and computers whose Office is a one-off purchase rather than Microsoft 365. Windows desktop Word only.
Save the template somewhere permanent
Not in your Downloads folder - a folder such as
Documents\Word templatesthat survives tidying up. A browser that quarantines downloads is the most common reason a template "disappears" after a few days.Put it where Word looks
Either copy the .dotm into Word's STARTUP folder (Word shows the path under File > Options > Advanced > File Locations > Startup), or load it once through Developer > Word Add-ins. The STARTUP route makes it available to every new document; your administrator can script the copy for a whole suite.
Restart Word and allow the macros
The template generates its drawings with macros, so Word will ask whether to allow them - allow them for this template once. If your school blocks macros entirely, the add-in version needs no macro permission at all; on a machine that also stays offline, write to myhama@hotmail.com for the macro-free figure pack: the same 889 drawings as a Word catalogue, plus PNG and SVG files for slides and handouts.
Enter your licence key
On the Science Teacher Helper tab click Enter licence key and paste the 20-character key from your order email. It is checked on your own computer, so this works with no connection, and the key is not tied to a machine.
When something is not right
The problems below are the ones schools actually report. Most are a Windows or Word setting rather than a fault in the product.
Word asks about macros, or blocks them
That is the classic template asking permission to run its own code - the drawings are generated by macros. Allow them for this template. If your organisation blocks macros entirely, ask us for the macro-free figure pack: the same 889 drawings as PNG and SVG files, plus a Word catalogue, delivered by myhama@hotmail.com.
The ribbon tab does not appear
The .dotm has to be in Word's STARTUP folder (or loaded once as a Word add-in) and macros have to be allowed. Restart Word after copying it, and check the folder under File > Options > Advanced > File Locations > Startup.
Nothing is inserted when I click a drawing
Check that the cursor is in the body of the document - not in a header, a footnote, a text box or a protected region. The pane's status line says what it is waiting for rather than failing silently.
The template vanished after a few days
It was still in the Downloads folder and your browser or IT policy cleaned up. Save .dotm files
somewhere permanent such as Documents\Word templates and put a copy in Word's STARTUP
folder.
A drawing inserts but no picture is drawn
This is a Word rendering limit rather than a missing drawing: some builds refuse the modern shape format in a document that was created in an older one. Save the document as .docx in a current Word, or use the classic template, whose drawings take the older route.
Some phonetic symbols are greyed out
A small number of legacy phonetic characters need a one-time review before they can be inserted; the pane links to the mapping page that lists them rather than offering a symbol that would come out wrong.
I paid but did not receive the download link, or lost my key
Check the spam folder first - the licence key arrives from our licence service, and school mail filters are enthusiastic. Then write to myhama@hotmail.com with the address you used at checkout and we will re-send it, together with the installation instructions.
The download itself was corrupt
Re-download it - a truncated download is the usual cause, and a download manager with resume handles a flaky connection better than a browser tab. If it still fails, tell us the file size you got and we will check the upload.
What support covers
What we do
- Licensing: keys, re-sends, moving to a new computer, quotes for a school.
- Installation: the add-in in Word, the classic template in STARTUP, central deployment.
- Faults: a drawing that will not insert, a pane that will not load, a figure that looks wrong.
- Content: a drawing whose name is misleading, or one you wish existed - tell us.
What we do not
- Teaching Word itself - layouts, styles and page numbering are Microsoft's ground, not ours.
- Telephone support: there is no phone line. Email keeps a record of the fix that a shared mailbox does not.
- Versions older than the one we sell - the fix is a current build.
When you write, the three things that make a fix fast: your Word version (File > Account), which version of the product you are using (the desktop template), and what you expected to happen. A screenshot of the pane beats a paragraph of description every time.