Creating a Single *.chm from a Merged Help Project? How? Caveats?

Report · Aug 17, 2009

Hello folks,

In troubleshooting my current merged help system I am actually seriously thinking about recreating ..or "importing".. all of the content into a single *.chm project. How feasible is this? What considerations must I keep in mind? The current merged help system has several slave projects and uses Map ID for context sensitive help:

master.chm

slave1.chm

slave2. chm

slave3.chm

slave4.chm

slave5.chm

slave6.chm

slave7.chm

slave8.chm

and it also makes use of individual *.h (header) files to contain Map ID information. I need to condense all of that (and retain the TOC structure of each project) into this:

master.chm

...that's all 🙂 (sarcasm). It seems the developer's code only points to master.chm. So I think I just need to create a single project that creates one master.chm. There are some links between chms as well. I guess those would have to be repaired manually. If there are no conflicts on the Map IDs I would think the software making the call to the master.chm should work and the proper topic should pop up. How can I retain each projects TOC structure and Index info?

Any suggestions on how to do this? Anyone know of any articles or bulletins on this topic? I am curently using RoboHelp 7 on WinXP. Is RoboHelp 8 a better candidate?

Thanks in advance!

Report · Aug 17, 2009

Hi there

RoboHelp 7 or RoboHelp 8 (as well as many predecessors) is capable of creating a Merged CHM setup. These work in a similar fashion to Merged WebHelp.

Why do you want to achieve one humongous CHM file? I would think it easier to manage a few smaller CHM projects.

Cheers... Rick

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Report · Aug 17, 2009

Hi,

tThanks for examining my plight.

I am finding it a small nightmare to get the redirect file to work properly or better yet, understand how all of the files work. I look at some file sections titled [merge] in certain files and instead of listing all of the slave *.chms it only lists two?!?!?! Why? I want all of the Map ID info to merge into the master.chm. There is no consistency in what I am seeing. I inherited the files from contractors who said they were given busted files from the original (full-time staff ..getting laid off)....the Map ID system did not work....they had to have two people work on that project. One person updated the content while the other person "hacked" (his term, not mine) the support redirect and associated files in order to get it to work. I spoke to that person briefly and he said he does not recall what he did to get it working. The other writer, working on the help content, said working with those Map IDs was the most stressful moment in her career. That made me feel justifed in the stress I was experiencing ...doing everything. Nope. No more merged help projects for me.

Report · Aug 17, 2009

Hi there

The redirect is a trick suggested by my friend and colleague Peter Grainge. It deals with constructing a Merged WebHelp output in a specific manner. If you are headed down the road of using .CHM output, you will not need a redirect.

Merging CHM or WebHelp outputs can take some wrapping your mind around. But it's not overly difficult to accomplish.

It sounds as if the situation was one where someone tossed some files in another's direction and they did the best they could with coping.

Before we go further, you probably need to define exactly what you hope to accomplish. Has that goal changed at all from what you first posted? If not, I'll happily give you some guidance on how to create a consolidated project consisting of two or more separate projects.