How to use variables \ macros with Inno Setup?

Question

I try to use the macros / variables in the following way, but then I get an error. Can you advice please?

#define AnnotateDir "C:\Users\new_skin\Annotate\project"
#define AnnotateUserInstallAppData "{userappdata}\Annotate3"


[Files]
Source: {AnnotateDir}\bin\gm_annotate.exe; DestDir: {app}; Flags:  ignoreversion  external

Answer 1

You are missing # char before the variable name which is used to emit defined variable value during script preprocessing stage. You can fix your script this way:

#define AnnotateDir "C:\Users\new_skin\Annotate\project"  

[Files]
Source: {#AnnotateDir}\bin\gm_annotate.exe; DestDir: {app}; Flags: ignoreversion external

It looks quite misleading, but e.g. the {app} constant will remain after preprocessing whilst your defined variable will be replaced by its value, so that's why they have different notation in script.