Useful Hints
Menu commands that affect individual, selected items in the directory browser or in a search hit or bookmark list can be found in the context menu that opens when you right-click such items. You won't find such commands in the main menu.
Use the mouse buttons as follows to define the block (if the context menu is switched off):
Double-clicking left sets the block beginning.
Single-clicking right sets the block end.
Double-clicking the right button clears the block.
You may want to define the block using the keyboard (Shift+arrow keys or Alt+1 and Alt+2).
Use the TAB key to switch between hexadecimal and text mode.
Use the Ins key to switch between insert and overwrite mode.
Enter displays the Start Center.
ESC aborts the current operation if any, otherwise clears the block, dismisses an active dialog or template window.
PAUSE stops or continues the current operation.
F11 repeats the last Go To Offset command. Ctrl+F11 works in the opposite direction (from the current position).
Alt++ is a variant of the Go To Offset command specifically to jump a certain number of sectors down.
Alt+- is another variant specifically to jump a certain number of sectors up.
Shift+F7 switches between three character sets.
(Shift+)Alt+F11 repeats the last Move Block command.
Ctrl+Shift+M invokes an open evidence object's annotations
Alt+F2 recalculates the auto-hash (checksum or digest) after a file was modified.
Alt+Left and Alt+Right allow for switching between records within a template (just as the "<" and ">" buttons). Alt+Home and Alt+End access the first and the last record, respectively.
Alt+G moves the cursor in the edit window to the current template position and closes the template window.
Ctrl+F9 opens the Access button menu (disk edit windows only)
Pressing Ctrl+C in the directory browser copies the textual data of the selected items into the clipboard, with the same notation as in the directory browser itself, otherwise using the functionality of the Export List command.
WinHex accepts filenames specified in the command line, and is drag-and-drop capable.
Use scripts to make your work with WinHex more efficient.
WinHex is drag-&-drop capable. However, Windows prevents drag & drop if the receiving application was run as administrator and the sending application was not.
"Invalid input": When clicking OK in a dialog box and getting the "Invalid input" error, pay attention to what control item in the dialog box is blinking, as the value in that item is the one that is not accepted.
Switch from hexadecimal to decimal offset presentation by clicking the offset numbers.
Try clicking the status bar cells (left and right mouse button).
All edit boxes throughout the program (except for password edit boxes and column width boxes) remember a history of up to 10 last entries. The history can be seen when clicking the tiny button that appears in an edit box for which a history is available. Alternatively, you can press the F4 key just like in a normal drop-down box (combo box). If you select a previous entry from the pop-up menu, it will be inserted into the edit box automatically. Users who wish to delete these histories or pass them on to others, please be advised that they are stored in the file History.dat when the program is ended. If you do not wish to keep histories between sessions, you can create an empty file named History.dat yourself and render it read-only. To delete a specific history entry for a particular edit box, selecting that entry from the pop-up menu with the Shift key pressed.
Since the days of Windows 95 (or perhaps even Windows 3.1?) users can press Ctrl+C to produce a plain-text representation of standard Windows message boxes in the clipboard. With message boxes in WinHex and X-Ways Forensics it works the same. Although this is an elementary feature in Windows for more than 20 years already and should be known to any experienced Windows user and although WinHex and X-Ways Forensics make users aware of that ("Did you know? ..."), the great majority of users for some reason still take graphical screenshots of message boxes and paste them into HTML e-mails, for example when they report error messages, although that is more work than simply pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V and although it inflates the size of the e-mail unnecessarily, as a few ASCII characters need much less space them thousands of pixel values. That also means the screenshot will get lost if the e-mail is converted to plain text when being replied on, and of course the error message text will not be searchable in a graphical screenshot and cannot be conveniently selected and copied to the clipboard as text by the recipient, and the recipient cannot be sure of the exact Unicode value of certain characters for which multiple variants exist.
In WinHex and X-Ways Forensics it is even possible to copy a rudimentary ASCII representation of dialog boxes and almost all their control items (static text, push buttons, check boxes, radio buttons, list boxes, combo boxes, and tree view controls) including their states (unchecked, checked, half checked) by pressing Ctrl+C with an active dialog box on the screen (not if an edit box with a selection has the input focus). There is also a dedicated command in the window menu of an dialog box. That menu is a.k.a. the system menu or control menu, and it pops up when right-clicking the title of a dialog box. This copy command is a very efficient way to show your settings in a certain dialog box to other users and let them copy strings for use in their own edit boxes, so that they don't have to type them, avoiding typos. The text representation is even more powerful than a screenshot because it shows the contents of edit boxes and list boxes completely, even if these controls have scrollbars and the contents exceed the physical boundaries of the controls on the screen. Unicode characters are supported. We suggest that users take screenshots of message boxes and dialog boxes only if absolutely necessary, for example if they wish to graphically highlight certain control items in a Photoshop or similar programs to get the message across.
Settings in practically all dialog boxes can also be conveniently saved to and loaded from files as needed, for example to share them with other users or for future use, via the system menu. This function can remember the selection states of the most important control types: check boxes, radio buttons, list boxes, combo boxes, and tree view controls. This works even if the controls are currently invisible. The settings are stored in files with the .dlg extension (for "dialog"), in the same directory as templates and scripts. The contents of edit boxes are also remembered. However, this function does not remember the contents/text labels of check boxes, list boxes, combo boxes, and tree view controls, e.g. which code page a check box represents in the Simultaneous Search dialog, which report tables exist in the Report Table filter list box, which external programs are listed in the Viewer Programs dialog window, which file types are listed in a tree view control etc. It also does not remember the order of controls or list items. It also does not remember settings in a dependent dialog window (which opens e.g. when clicking a "..." button). The functionality is not available for the Directory Browser Options dialog window. For the directory browser options please save and load .settings files by clicking the icons in the directory browser caption line. The functionality to store dialog window selections in files is very useful for example for the Export List command, where some users repeatedly need different settings for different purposes, and where the items in the list box are always the same (just the available columns), except after changing the language of the user interface.