converting merged webhelp projects to chm

[RonW63]

A bit of history behind this question.

Coming into this role I was handed a HUGE single webhelp project. Following the advice given on Grainge.org, i have migrated the huge, unmanageable project into 13 sensible, smaller, merged projects. Everything works tickety-boo except that the new merged output is roughly double the output size of the original project.  I can live with this... it is because of duplicated topics, and I have a method in-hand to reconcile the duplications as time allows.

Now the question. Because of the size of the new merged webhelp and until I have the time to reconcile the duplications, my developer colleagues would like the help to be of a CHM variety. The Help is usually installed on our client machines, but could be installed on the serverside.

So, my best alternative is...

A) re-generate each of the 13 sub-projects as a CHM file?  My worry is that the whole merged Help thing wouldn't work with this option? How do I link contextual help to a compiled topic (currently I provide an XML map which is called from the application)?

B) convert Robohelp's output files to CHM?  Is there a freeware/ shareware utility out there that anyone would recommend?

C) something else that I haven't thought of?

Thank you in advance for any advice and guidance...

Ron

[Captiv8r]

Hi Ron

Converting to CHM should be simple. Just open each project and compile as CHM format.

CHM format also works with merging just as WebHelp does. Whereas WebHelp relies on a specific folder structure to accomplish things, CHM is a bit simpler. You just ensure all the merged CHM files are in the same folder. There is another way to make it work by registering certain folders, but the plop it all in a single folder works well.

Linking these to Context Sensitive help will be a different matter. Your developers will need to use different calls to open the CHM. And you will need to create MAP files and assign Map IDs to the topics. And it really shouldn't matter that the CHM files are different. You can make that work.

Cheers... Rick

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[RonW63]

Thank you Rick

I've just had a quick stab at this by publishing the Master project and 1 sub-project. The results aren't promising: each project is now a self-contained chm with no common TOC and all inter-project links are broken.

The structure I have is a Master project with a single boiler-plate topic and the main TOC, and several sub-projects.

[Captiv8r]

Hello again

Note that I said it's easy to republish. But I didn't say that the overall process would occur without issues.

Establishing the relationship occurs the same way as it does in WebHelp. You insert references to the TOC. You may actually have to re-insert because at the time you make the reference, the dialog asks whether it is for CHM or for WebHelp. So it wouldn't surprise me much to find that you have to re-establish the Master/Slave relationship that way.

Links between projects will be a bit tricky to make happen. I think you can probably overcome this by using the Related Topics controls. I'd have to do some digging to sort that.

Cheers... Rick

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[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

My understanding of cross project links is that they are very different in webhelp and CHMs. Create a cross project link to another CHM and you will see what I mean. There is something about this at the end of my Merged Help topic for RoboHelp 8.

I know when others have contacted me about producing both types of merge, they have ended up creating two cross project links and using conditional build tags.

I've skated through the thread so forgive me if this has been covered but your developers really don't want to put CHMs on a server. See http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/chm_mspatch/896358.htm

I'm wondering if the developers just don't like the number of files partly because it looks more complex and partly because they are still thinking of space and installation considerations. If you measure by the clock rather than emotion, it really isn't an issue. There are many files but all very small.

Whilst webhelp can be run locally, you will need to tick the option to apply the Mark of the Web and I believe that can have issues with PDFs if your help links to any.

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@petergrainge