MadCap Software Forums

Hello,

We currently provide our locally-installed product documentation as .CHM Help. This format seems rather antiquated now, however, and we are interested in learning about other alternatives. For those of you who provide locally-installed Help, what format(s) do you use? I would appreciate any information you could provide.

Thanks.

Most of our desktop applications are using WebHelp, but we're in the process of switching to HTML5 help.

I second Dave's reply. Stopped using .chm two years ago; went to WebHelp. Now moving to HTML5.

You might also want to take a look at DotNetHelp in case you document a DotNet based app. If not, HTML5 help it is although the current recommendation from Microsoft even for Windows 8 still is CHM.

Moving from CHM to HTML5 help over the last two years. About half of our projects are currently in HTML5 - all installed and accessed locally on the designated system.

I'm using both HTML5 and Webhelp. However, I believe there is still a problem with Chrome not supporting local Webhelp. Other browsers can throw up odd behavior. You should test your output with a range of browsers.

Thanks for all the replies. We use HTML5 for the Help that is available from our Website, and I like the modern look. I am interested in moving to that format for our desktop applications as well. I would appreciate any resources you could point me to - or tips - that would be helpful in making the conversion from CHM to HTML5 and deploying HTML5 Help with a desktop app.