arCHMage

arCHMage is a reader and decompiler for files in the CHM format. This is the format used by Microsoft HTML Help, and is also known as Compiled HTML.

Usage

Extract CHM content into directory

archmage -x <chmfile> [output directory]

Extraction does not overwrite existing directories.

Dump HTML data from CHM

archmage -d <chmfile>

Convert CHM file into another format

archmage -c (html|text|pdf) <chmfile> [output file]

This feature requires htmldoc(1), and lynx(1) or elinks(1) installed.

Serve CHM contents over HTTP

archmage -p <port> <chmfile|dir with chm files>

Serve CHM contents from Apache

TODO: document how to proxy Apache to running archmage -p.

Then http://youserver/sample.chm will serve raw CHM file, and http://yourserver/sample.chm/ will serve unpacked CHM file view.

Installation

arCHMage requires the following libraries:

• Python >= 2.3
• PyCHM
• Beautiful Soup

Optional dependencies:

• htmldoc - converting to plain text, single HTML, PDF formats (Debian/Ubuntu: htmldoc)
• Lynx or ELinks - converting to plain text (Debian/Ubuntu: lynx)

Use the regular setup.py stanza:

python setup.py install