Re: HTML Help Uncompiling

["Ben Weisner (@Home)" <benw -at- weisner -dot- com>]

Hi Nancy,

Since CHMs are binary files (just like WinHelp files) you would need to
either get the source files from your outsourcing vendor (which they should
have povided for you, anyway) or decompile the CHM in order to make changes
to it. You might want to check out http://www.keyworks.net. Keyworks was
founded by Ralph Walden, the (now retired) Microsoft engineer that
developed Windows Help and HTML Help. Keyworks has, for free download, a
CHM decompiler, as well as a beta of a software program that will allow you
to make changes to an exisitng CHM file without decompiling it, but which
probably would not work for your situation (too long to go into why it
wouldn't). I think that some of the things that were mentioned in the
Wexler book were things that, at the time, had been planned for a future
release of HTML Help but still have not been implemented.

Hope that helps!

Ben Weisner
Weisner Associates Inc.

At 03:06 PM 9/2/99 -0400, mcdonan1 -at- nationwide -dot- com wrote:
>Here's a question (or 2) about an already-compiled HTML Help file that
needs to
>be revised... one of the titles in the TOC is incorrectly written, and one
topic
>is missing and there are some inconsistencies in formatting and content, so I
>need to get back into this and fix it.  (I was SUPPOSED to be more involved
>awhile ago, but other priorities took over and the vendor made this mess.)
>Trouble is that the programmers from the vendor company (who's building the
>system and compiled these Help files from some of my early Word docs...)
have,
>in the latest executable, just the .chm, or main help file.  I need to
know if I
>need to have all the source files in order to edit, or will the .chm be
>sufficient?
>I've got the HH Workshop and the .chm in my PC,  and Steve Wexler's book
at my
>side, but he's not helping me much. 2 whole pages in the book about
recompiling