Question

I'm trying to decide whether to buy a Kindle 2, now that it's available in Europe. One thing I would like to do with it is put several Windows help files on it (e. g. the Python documentation). Is there a good way to convert a CHM file to a Kindle-readable format?

Or is this something that other e-readers like Sony's do better since EPUB and CHM are both based on HTML?

Answer 1

if you're using Windows:

1. extract the HTML files from the CHM container from the command prompt with HH.EXE

example:

HH.EXE -decompile C:\Temp\decompile-folder C:\Temp\yourCHM.chm

(Mac users can use Tubby to convert CHM to HTML)

2. merge the HTML files into a single file (e.g. with SoftSnow Merger)

3. use Calibre to convert it to EPUB.

all programs mentioned above are freeware, hh.exe is a Microsoft Windows Help utility.

there are commercial programs like ABC Amber CHM Converter that will perform steps 1 & 2 automatically. however, i don't know any software that will convert CHM directly to EPUB. other commercial applications (e.g. Universal Document Converter) can be used to convert CHM to PDF which the Kindle may or may not handle all that well.

Answer 2

Cool workaround by Molly, but you can also use eCub to create ePUB from html pages, this way you don't have a one page book, but books with chapters and various pages.