Very new user! can't seem to open .chm or .hlp files with robohelp2020

[Dan347345954jgh]

Hi,

I'm a total beginner of RohoHelp. Rather than create a project, I want to try my hand at editing an existing chm or hlp file. I'm confused as my version of RohoHelp doesn't seem to open these files even though they are supported. Am I doing something wrong? The program just opens to a New/Open project window, and either option just opens a blank project. 

I can't seem to find anything in the user guide.

The source files also have .cnt and .gid versions (not sure what those are)

[Jeff_Coatsworth · Accepted solution]

CHMs are the supported output of RH, not the source project files. It's possible to reverse engineer them back into a RH source project, painful - see https://www.grainge.org/RoboHelp/Reverse_Engineering/Reverse_Engineering.htm?rhhlterm=reverse&rhsear... 

[Dan347345954jgh]

Thanks for the response

[Peter Grainge]

As @Jeff_Coatsworth says, they are outputs and HLP files are a format that officially died with Windows XP but were out of use before that. If you only have the output, you would need to do as Jeff suggests. 

You are better off trying one of the sample projects that comes with RoboHelp. There is a lot of RoboHelp information on my site. 2020 is covered here. Welcome (grainge.org). Note that 2022 is the current version.

RoboHelp creates two copies of the samples on installation. 

• The copy to use is put in My RoboHelp Projects in the Documents folder that Windows creates in your profile.
• Another copy goes into Program Files and should never be run from there as Windows will block some of the functionality.  The idea of the copy in Program Files is that it is a clean back up if you need to replace the copy in Documents.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Dan347345954jgh]

Thanks for the info