Re: WINDOWS HELP FILE (.HLP) FORMAT

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#1984

From: Scott Evernden
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:45

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In article <1992Dec14.221951.18493@husc3.harvard.edu> mwien@husc9.harvard.edu (Michelle Wien) writes:
>
>  Hi,
>  
>  I'm trying to understand the format of the Windows .HLP
>file. Do any of you know if this format is documented ?
>Or has anyone ever tried to extract the text (at least
>some of it) from a .HLP file ?
>
>  There are many formats, including the ones generated by
>hc30 and hc31, with various degrees of compression. I'd
>be happy if someone can tell me what information I should
>look for (and where) at least in an uncompressed .HLP file
>(created w/ hc30 or hc31 and COMPRESSION=NONE).

GOOD LUCK in finding *any* information on the .HLP file
format.  I've been searching for *anything* for months.
I've concluded that Microsoft wants to *own* the entire
potential "knowledge navigator" (Multimedia Viewer, etc)
market, and so will likely *never* make it possible for
anyone but Microsoft to play with WINHELP files. 

I can think of a *lot* of ways to improve on the way
WINHELP works, but until someone spills the beans, or
reverse engineers the format, we're gonna be stuck with
whatever Microsoft thinks we all need...

-scott

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References: <1992Dec14.221951.18493@husc3.harvard.edu>

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!opl.com!scott
From: scott@opl.com (Scott Evernden)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc
Subject: Re: WINDOWS HELP FILE (.HLP) FORMAT
Message-ID: <1108@ottawa.opl.com.opl.com>
Date: 17 Dec 92 15:45:30 GMT
References: <1992Dec14.221951.18493@husc3.harvard.edu>
Distribution: comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc
Organization: OPL. Inc.
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