Troubleshooting Common Issues in Macrobject CHM-2-Web Professional

Migrating Help Files with Macrobject CHM-2-Web Professional — Step-by-StepMigrating legacy CHM help files to modern, web-friendly formats is a common task for technical writers, support teams, and software vendors. Macrobject CHM-2-Web Professional is a specialized tool designed to convert compiled HTML Help (CHM) into a structured set of web pages, preserving navigation, searchability, and styling while enabling deployment on intranets, public websites, or documentation portals. This guide walks through the migration process step-by-step, highlights best practices, and covers common pitfalls and troubleshooting tips.

Why migrate CHM files?

• CHM is a Windows-centric, compiled format that’s increasingly incompatible with modern web and mobile platforms.
• Web-based documentation improves accessibility (cross-platform, mobile-ready) and enables easier updates, analytics, and user engagement.
• Migrating allows integration with content management systems, search engines, and modern UI frameworks.

Preparation: inventory and planning

1. Inventory your CHM files
   • Collect all CHM files to be migrated.
   • Note versions, languages, and any associated resources (images, stylesheets, JavaScript).
2. Define target requirements
   • Decide whether the output will be a static set of HTML files, hosted on a web server, or imported into a CMS (e.g., WordPress, Confluence, Docusaurus).
   • Determine URL structure, navigation design, and whether you’ll keep original filenames or use SEO-friendly slugs.
3. Backup originals and set up a testing environment
   • Keep a copy of each CHM and extracted source files.
   • Create a staging web server (local or remote) for iterative testing.

Installing and configuring Macrobject CHM-2-Web Professional

1. Obtain and install
   • Download the installer from the vendor and follow installation instructions. Ensure you have the proper license for the “Professional” edition.
2. Launch and familiarize with the UI
   • CHM-2-Web Professional typically provides a project-based interface where you add source CHM files, configure output options, and run conversions.
3. Configure global options
   • Output folder: choose a clear folder structure per project.
   • Encoding: ensure UTF-8 for better international support unless legacy encodings are required.
   • Template/theme selection: pick a built-in template or prepare a custom CSS/HTML template if you need branding-consistent output.
4. Configure link handling and assets
   • Decide how internal links, anchors, and images are mapped — preserve relative links or rewrite to new URLs.
   • Include options for extracting embedded resources and reconciling duplicate names.

Step-by-step conversion process

1. Create a new project
   • Start a new project in CHM-2-Web and give it a descriptive name (e.g., “ProductX Help — v2”).
2. Add source CHM files
   • Import one or more CHM files into the project. For multi-language documentation, add each language as a separate input or project.
3. Inspect and configure content map
   • Review the table of contents (TOC) extracted from the CHM. CHM-2-Web shows the structure and page list; you can reorder or omit pages here.
   • Rename pages or adjust titles for clarity and SEO if desired.
4. Choose output format and template
   • Select HTML output and pick a template. For single-page app or SPA-like navigation, prepare templates that include dynamic TOC rendering.
5. Configure search options
   • Enable a client-side search index (e.g., JavaScript-based full-text search) or export metadata for server-side indexing.
   • Adjust indexing rules to exclude trivial pages (license files, changelogs) if necessary.
6. Set URL structure and filenames
   • Decide whether to keep original .html filenames or use friendly slugs. Configure options for handling spaces, special characters, and case sensitivity.
7. Extract and map images and assets
   • Ensure images and scripts embedded in CHM are extracted into an assets folder. Resolve any name collisions by enforcing unique names or subfolders.
8. Preview and test locally
   • Use the built-in preview or open the generated output in a browser from the staging folder. Check TOC, links, images, and styles.
9. Run the full export
   • When satisfied, run the complete export to your chosen output directory.
10. Post-export processing
    • Run find/replace on generated HTML if needed (for branding strings, route adjustments).
    • Minify CSS/JS and optimize images for web performance.

Integrating output into a website or CMS

• Static site: Copy the output folder to your web server root or a subdirectory. Ensure the server serves .html and static assets with proper MIME types.
• CMS import: If importing into systems like WordPress, you can either:
  • Use a plugin to import static HTML into pages/posts, or
  • Feed the generated content into a headless CMS or documentation platform and map URLs accordingly.
• Search and analytics: Add site search (if not already provided by CHM-2-Web) and integrate analytics tracking to monitor usage and find gaps in documentation.

Styling and branding tips

• Use a global stylesheet to align fonts, colors, and responsive breakpoints with your brand.
• Ensure mobile-friendly layouts: choose a responsive template or modify generated HTML to include responsive meta tags and flexible CSS grids.
• Consolidate navigation: add global header/footer and breadcrumbs to improve orientation across pages.

Handling multilingual documentation

• For multiple languages, create separate output directories per language (e.g., /en/, /fr/).
• Provide a language switcher with equivalent page mappings.
• Verify character encoding and localize search indexing.

Common issues and troubleshooting

• Broken internal links: Recheck link rewriting rules; use relative paths where possible. If CHM used absolute IDs, map them to generated filenames.
• Missing images or scripts: Confirm the extractor included embedded resources and that path references were updated.
• Encoding problems: If characters appear garbled, ensure output files are UTF-8 and that the web server declares correct Content-Type charset.
• Duplicate filenames: Configure CHM-2-Web to append unique suffixes or organize pages into subfolders.
• Large projects slow to index: Split into smaller projects or generate server-side search indexes (e.g., Elasticsearch) for performance.

Automation and CI/CD

• Batch processing: Use CHM-2-Web command-line options (if available) to script conversions for multiple CHM files.
• CI pipelines: Incorporate conversion into your build pipeline to regenerate docs on release. Example steps:
  • Checkout repo → run CHM-2-Web conversion → post-process → deploy to staging → run tests.
• Verify output with automated link checkers and accessibility linters.

Example workflow (condensed)

1. Inventory CHM files and back them up.
2. Create a CHM-2-Web project and import CHM.
3. Configure template, encoding, and URL rules.
4. Preview, run export, and fix issues.
5. Deploy output to web server or import into CMS.
6. Add search, analytics, and monitor.

Final recommendations

• Keep original CHM backups until new documentation is fully validated.
• Start with a pilot: migrate a representative CHM to uncover issues before doing bulk conversion.
• Document your conversion rules and post-processing scripts so future migrations are repeatable.

If you want, I can: provide a checklist you can print for a migration run, generate sample shell commands for automating CHM-2-Web (if it has CLI on your version), or draft a small CSS template to apply branding to the exported pages. Which would you like?