Include several chm in one

[vlavergne]

Hello,

I work on a software documentation which is composed y several chm.
I want to include the several chm in only one chm, to make easy the connection of the chm with the software.
And I when I call help from the software I want search help from the principal chm and not from the sevaral chm.
I hope I'm clear enough... :)

I want to know if it's possible to include several chm in only one,
and call the principal chm from the software and search help into the several chm include into ?

Thanks a lot for your answer.

[CraigCC]

Hi vlavergne,

Can I just quickly confirm exactly what you want to achieve - I appreciate that there may be a slight language barries so I just want to make sure that you get what you want here :-)

Do you need to combine several separate .chms into one large .chm?

There are two possibilites:
1. You can go through the process of pulling the separate .chms together to make one single .chm OR
2. You can merge the .chms together using a master slave process. That is, one main .chm that points to other .chm files. This method is transparent to the user when they open up the help system

Which method would you prefer and I will post more details?

thanks
Craig
I just want to make sure that

[vlavergne]

Hi Craig,

I'm interested by your second possibilites.
Because I want the solution is transparent to the user.

Thanks for your help! 🙂

[CraigCC]

Both solutions mean that the user sees one help system.
A single combined help system is usually easier to work with.

There are a few advantages the second method:

- you can include or exclude .chms when shipping the help system
- different authors can work on different .chms
- if the combined help system is very large, separate .chms merged at shipping will be more manageable.

Two more question:
1. What exactly do you have now? Do you have a bunch of separate .chms that you feel could be merged together with one bit table of contents, one index and one search tab?

2. Are you sure that you will only ever need to create .chm format. The reason for asking this is that once you go down the second route of merging, it will only work for merged .chms - merged webhelp is a little different.

Kind Regards
Craig

[vlavergne]

Hello,
1. actually I've one chm that include all documentation and index
2. it's neccessary that format is chm because the client application work with this format
regards

[CraigCC · Accepted solution]

Hi Vlavergne,

I'm confused, but again apologies as it may be a language barrier (where are you from by the way?).

You say that you have "one .chm that includes all the documentation?" I thought that you had separate .chm that you needed to merge or combine into one?

If you need to merge the separate .chm files, take a look at Robohelps online help and start with the topic 'FAQs about merging projects'. There is also a great document available on the Helpware Group website:
http://www.helpware.net/htmlhelp/how_to_merge.htm

The help and link should help you get started and understand the concept of merging .chms. You basically need to create a master .chm that is a holder for the slave .chm files.

If you need to combine a bunch of .chm projects, let me know.

Kind regards
Craig

[vlavergne]

Hi Craig,

thanks for all your answers, they realy help me.
I manage to do what I want, with all my chm. :)

[vlavergne]

Hi Craig,

thanks for all your answers, they realy help me.
I manage to do what I want, with all my chm. :)