Opening CHM from Web Page

[mjoshi2978]

I am trying to put a hyperlink on my page which redirects to open up a .chm file and then jump to the topic where I am expecting it to be. For example I have 5 fields on my webpage. Each has a separate page of description. I have created 5 different topics and htm files to describe those. Now I need to jump to the page of the exact field topic when the user clicks on the hyperlink on my webpage. How can I make this functionality working? Is there any way to jump to the exact topic page from the .CHM file? Please guide me..I am in the a big trouble out here to enable this functionality...please anybody help...thanks for that in advance....

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Just a couple of up front things.

First, you posted the same question twice. Please don't do that. If you were to have read some of the pages we put up that are intended to help you get the most from your forum experience, you would have understood why. You may read the Before You Post topic by Clicking Here. You will find helpful hints there.

As a forum admin, I have deleted your second post. It is a duplication where you are asking the same question twice. Additionally, in each case, you appended your question onto some older, seemingly related questions. Your issue is really deserving of a new thread. So I have done just that. I split it off from where you asked initially and it is now a thread of its own. The one I'm replying to at this moment.

Okay, so now onto hopefully a helpful answer.

To open a CHM file at a specific page, you launch the CHM file viewer (usually using HH.EXE - as in clicking Start > Run, typing HH.EXE and pressing Enter)

But you supply the CHM filename as well as the path to the topic. So let's assume you want to open a CHM file named MyHelp.CHM. You have a topic inside with the file name of MyTopic.HTM. Your command would look like this:

HH.EXE ms-its:MyHelp.CHM::/MyTopic.HTM

If that topic were perhaps inside a folder of the CHM, it may look like this:

HH.EXE ms-its:MyHelp.CHM::SomeFolder/MyTopic.HTM

Your post seems to infer that you are linking from a Web Page to a .CHM file?

If that's the case, you are in for a bit of a surprise. Don't expect things to be a smooth road. For starters, if this is all happening from a web page on a server, your user will likely encounter a dialog asking if they wish to Save the CHM file each time they summon help. There really isn't a way past that I'm aware of. It's a standard behavior of browsing technology. A safeguard. So assuming you could live with that, you then would likely encounter problems simply opening the CHM for viewing. CHM files downloaded from the web are often blocked from showing content. So assuming your user were to save the CHM successfully, they would likely need to unblock it to view it. This is another safeguard.

The bottom line with CHM files is that they are intended to be used only from the local PC and not served from a server. For server use, RoboHelp WebHelp or FlashHelp is the better choice. Personally, I favor WebHelp over FlashHelp, as it is more easily customized.

Hopefully this helps... Rick

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[Ashley_Bryant]

Hi Rick,

I know this is a really old thread, but I'm having a similar issue. Our product has locally installed HTML pages viewed through a window in the product. I'm trying to add a link to a locally installed HTML page that will open a locally installed CHM file.

Initially I tried something like this:

<a href="ms-its:C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ProductName\Common Components\Help\5.20\XX.chm::/MainFolder/Topic.htm">Topic Title</a>

That opens the topic, but it opens it in the browser window. That's great with no annoying messages, but there is one other problem. We have a merged help system consisting of 20-some separate CHM files with a bunch of links from one CHM file to another. When you click one of the cross-CHM links, your get the "This program cannot display the webpage" message.

I see how inserting hh.exe in front of ms-its works if I enter it as a run command, but not from an HTML page - at least not the way I tried to do it.

Any suggestions?

Ashley