

      HLP2DOC  - Windows Help File to Winword Document File Conversion

                      Wolfgang Beyer    30.6.94

                        (C)     Wolfgang Beyer

HLP2DOC is a DOS utility to convert a Windows 3.x Help File to a Word for
Windows 2.0 Document File including formatting information. There is also
a windows front end program H2DSTART for easy handling.

This Version (1.37) of HLP2DOC is freeware, you may give it to anyone who
want it.

                !!! Use HLP2DOC at your own risk !!!

Please save any documents you have opened before you load a doc file that
was produced by hlp2doc, there is a (small) possibility of winword crashing or
hanging.

Version 1.37 supports fonts arial, times new roman and courier at all
possible sizes. Attributes bold, italic, underlined, strike through and
as well as topics highlighting (green/underlined) are handled.
Some colors are implemented, lines and boxes should be displayed.

New:  No more "Link Errors" on most help files

I want to extend hlp2doc to support imbedded pictures (bitmaps), but I dont't
know if I can do this.

HLP2DOC uses up to 13 temporary files, be sure to have enough free disk space
and at least FILES=20 in your CONFIG.SYS. Running from a ram disk gives you
much better performance.
HLP2DOC outputs a dot on every 8 KB written, so you can see if it is still
working when processing a large help file.

Command line
------------
hlp2doc [-p] helpfile[.hlp]     or     hlp2doc [-p] helpfile.mvb

hlp2doc writes a file <helpfile>.doc to the actual directory, where <helpfile>
is the name of the input file.
When specified with the optional parameter '-p', hlp2doc puts a form feed
at the end of each help topic, otherwise only two empty lines are inserted
to save paper on printing.

Known Bugs:
-----------
- some HLP files run into a "link error", this may result in missing
  topics at the end of the DOC-file.
- the default tab stops are always set at 0.8 cm, which is not appropriate
  for all files.

Drawbacks:
----------
- Bitmaps (BMP) appear as big dot
- HLP2DOC is rather slow, big help files may take some minutes
- A maximum of 6 Tabulator stop positions is entered

How it was done:
----------------
I have to thank Ron Burk and Peter Davis for their work on the structure
of the Windows Help Files which was published in Dr. Dobbs Journal some time
ago. In addition I had to spend a lot of time to analyze the mysteries of
the HLP and DOC files, printing many sides of paper with hex dumps. I will
upload a description of all that I found out on the DOC file structure as well
as the HLP file structure soon, first I have to write it down in readable form.

HLP2DOC is written in Turbo-C for DOS.

Windows front end:
------------------
Steve Martindill wrote a windows front end for HLP2DOC named H2DSTART that
I inluded in the distribution file. It needs the Visual Basic Runtime system
VBRUN300.DLL that you can upload from various ftp server.

History
-------
Version 1.07    12.4.94         Initial release

Version 1.08    15.4.94         Bugfixes:
                                  - HLP2DOC 1.07 crashed on HLP files with
                                    big paragraph formatting links
                                    (e.g. with more than 4 TAB definitions)
                                  - Some produced HLP files caused WINWORD to
                                    hang because of paragraph formatting
                                    information in wrong order
                                  - Text indenting was wrong in some cases
                                    (format code x81)

Version 1.13    19.4.94           - Support of boxes, lines, colors and
                                    all font sizes, fonts courier and tnr
                                  - improved memory utilization (bigger
                                    help files are possible)
                                  - Bug that caused winword to crash in
                                    some cases corrected

Version 1.22    16.5.94         Bugfixes:
                                  - Very big helpfiles can be processed.
                                    (winword.hlp 2.0 was successfully tested)
                                  - Adjusted default tabs
                                  - Crash on files with many internal files
                                    is fixed
                                  - Shifting of formatting information in
                                    some cases is fixed.

Version 1.27     6.6.94           - support of winhelp tables

Version 1.28    12.6.94           - Reads Phrases in Pieces, so help files
                                    with very big phrase tables now can be
                                    processed.

Version 1.32    18.6.94           - Support of .mvb files
                                  - Correction of some bugs of the previous
                                    versions.

Version 1.37    16.7.94           - Occurence of "Topic Link Errors" reduced.
                                  - Additional format codes supported.
                                  - 2 small bugs fixed.

                           ------------------

HLPDC137.ZIP containing HLP2DOC.EXE, HLP2DOC.TXT (this text) and H2DSTART.EXE
is uploaded to ftp.lrz-muenchen.de in directory /pub/comp/platforms/pc/windows.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome.
Email: beyer@lrz-muenchen.de.
