printable manual

[stochastic]

I have a sizeable help file for my software product, written with
FrontPage and converted to chm (compiled help).

I want to convert it into a printable version where I will be able to
insert header-footers; control pagination; set page margins; etc. etc.

It's too laborious to copy-paste into Word. Also, the formats aren't
preserved as I would wish.

What's the best way to achive this - creating a printable version of
the help pages?

TIA
stochastic

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

This is a tricky one. You're definitely going to loose some formatting in
almost any scenario because the formatting rules in the help file are
different for word docs and the like. Your best bet might be a program that
can convert help files to rtf (rich text format). I ran across some of these
the other day (sorry that I didn't save the URLs) but didn't run across any
that will convert to word directly. You should be able to find some by
searching google for convert htmlhelp to rtf

Hope this helps,
Mark Fitzpatrick
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

 

[JL Amerson]

If you'd written your Help file in ForeHelp or Help Magician, I could have
helped you to a degree.

 

[JL Amerson]

How many topics are in your help file? There just may be a
chance................

 

[Pete Lees]

stochastic,

I have a sizeable help file for my software product, written with
FrontPage and converted to chm (compiled help).

I want to convert it into a printable version where I will be able to
insert header-footers; control pagination; set page margins; etc. etc.

It's too laborious to copy-paste into Word. Also, the formats aren't
preserved as I would wish.

Here's a link to some information that may help a little:

http://helpware.net/FAR/far_faq.htm#chmtopdf

The better option, though, would probably be to find someone who uses
a help authoring tool such as RoboHelp, AuthorIT or Doc-To-Help, as
these tools can import a help project and output a print version.