Microsoft Compiled HTML Help
Software help file format by Microsoft
| Microsoft HTML Help Executable | |
|---|---|
| Other names | hh.exe |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Included with | Microsoft Windows |
| Predecessor | Microsoft WinHelp |
| Successor | Microsoft Help 2 |
| Type | Help system |
Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) is a Microsoft proprietary online help format, consisting of a collection of HTML pages, an index and other navigation tools. The files are compressed and deployed in a binary format with the extension .CHM. The format was intended to succeed Microsoft WinHelp.
Although the format was designed by Microsoft, it has been successfully reverse-engineered and is now supported by many document viewers.
01History
CHM was introduced as the successor to Microsoft WinHelp with the release of Windows 95 OSR 2.5. Within the Windows NT family, the CHM file support is introduced in Windows NT 4.0 and is still supported in Windows 11.
| Month | Year | Description |
|---|---|---|
| February | 1996 | Microsoft announces plans to stop development of WinHelp and start development on HTML Help. |
| August | 1997 | HTML Help 1.0 (HH 1.0) is released with Internet Explorer 4. |
| February | 1998 | HTML Help 1.1a ships with Windows 98. |
| January | 2000 | HTML Help 1.3 ships with Windows 2000. |
| July | HTML Help 1.32 releases with Internet Explorer 5.5 and Windows Me. | |
| October | 2001 | HTML Help 1.33 releases with Internet Explorer 6 and Windows XP. |
| March | At the WritersUA (formerly WinWriters) conference, Microsoft announces plans for a new help platform, Help 2, which is also HTML based. | |
| January | 2003 | Microsoft decides not to release Microsoft Help 2 as a general Help platform. |
Microsoft has announced that they do not intend to add any new features to HTML Help.
02File format
Help is delivered as a binary file with the .chm extension. It contains a set of HTML files, a hyperlinked table of contents, and an index file. The file format has been reverse-engineered and documentation of it is freely available.
The file starts with bytes "ITSF" (in ASCII), for "Info-Tech Storage Format", which is the internal name given by Microsoft to the generic storage file format used for CHM files.
CHM files support the following features:
- Data compression (using LZX)
- Built-in search engine
- Ability to merge multiple .chm help files
- Extended character support, although it does not fully support Unicode.
The Microsoft Reader's .lit file format is a modification of the HTML Help CHM format. CHM files are sometimes used for e-books.
03Viewers
In addition to Microsoft Windows, the following apps support CHM:
| Name | Operating system | Website | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Okular | Linux, Unix-like, Windows | okular.kde.org | Uses hh.exe on Windows |
| Calibre | Windows, macOS, Linux | calibre-ebook.com | |
| Sumatra PDF | Windows | www.sumatrapdfreader.org
sumatrapdf on GitHub |
|
| GnoCHM | Linux, BSD | GnoCHM on SourceForge | |
| CHM View | None/Uncompiled | chmviewkit on GitHub | |
| kchmviewer | Windows, Linux | ulduzsoft.com/kchmviewer/ | |
| KCHM | Linux, BSD, Solaris | KCHM on SourceForge | |
| CHMPane | Windows, macOS, Linux | CHMPane on SourceForge | |
| CHMate Neue | iOS, iPadOS, visionOS | CHMate Neue on iTunes | |
| iChm | iOS, macOS | iChm on iTunes | Discontinued |
| ChmPlus | iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS | ChmPlus on iTunes | |
| Chmox | macOS | chmox.sourceforge.net
Chmox on SourceForge |
|
| Clearview | macOS | Clearview on iTunes | |
| DisplayCHM | Linux | linux-apps.com/p/998057 | |
| KOReader | Android, Linux | koreader.rocks | |
| 7-zip | Windows (GUI), MacOS (command-line), Linux (command-line) | www.7-zip.org | 7-zip can show the contents of .chm files as though they are a compressed archive, but does not render the HTML as a help-viewer. |
04Creators
Microsoft's HTML Help Workshop generates CHM files by instructions stored in an HTML Help project file, which bears a .HHP file name extension and is a specialized form of INI file.
Lazarus and Free Pascal provide a doxygen-like tool for CHM generation and a separate command-line compiler called chmcmd.
05Other utilities
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Microsoft Compiled HTML Help”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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