How to view CHM files?

Question

How to view CHM files in Ubuntu?

score 82 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 19 '23 at 14:27

82

xChm Viewer

Install the xChm Viewer for viewing CHM files:

sudo apt-get install xchm

edited Mar 19 '23 at 14:27

karel

114,770

answered Oct 19 '10 at 05:40

Chakra

3,472

The search function doesn't work for me. – user643722 Mar 29 '18 at 10:29
It seems xchm doesn't support multi-bytes characters. I encountered an error when open a .chm document which contains multi-bytes characters: ../src/common/unichar.cpp(65): assert "Assert failure" failed in ToHi8bit(): character cannot be converted to single byte – LiuYan 刘研 Oct 21 '20 at 08:40

score 42 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 19 '23 at 11:59

42

chmsee is no longer available in Ubuntu, as it is no longer being maintained. Here is the announcement on the project site:

ChmSee is no longer maintained.

ChmSee is not being developed anymore.

I haven't read CHM documents more than a year, new and updated IT books are pdfs or epubs, so it's the right time to end this chm viewer.

ChmSee

alt text

https://code.google.com/p/chmsee/

sudo apt-get install chmsee

edited Mar 19 '23 at 11:59

karel

114,770

answered Oct 19 '10 at 05:55

borjacampina

1,054

4

Thanks. Note: http://apt.ubuntu.com/p/chmsee gives "You don't seem to be running Ubuntu" from Ubuntu 10.04/Chrome. – Olivier Lalonde Oct 20 '10 at 12:30
5

Unable to locate package chmsee on Ubuntu 14.04 :( – Salman Apr 12 '14 at 00:13
@borjacampina, HOW to install it in ubutnu 14.04? – shgnInc Apr 26 '14 at 06:15
1

@shgnInc http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/getdeb_apps/trusty/apps/getdeb/chmsee Download 32-bit or 64-bit deb file depend on arch.. install it using sudo dbpg -i – Batakj May 02 '14 at 07:27
I has been using chmsee for many time, but is no more mantained... See https://code.google.com/p/chmsee/ – Stefano May 08 '14 at 07:36

score 33 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 19 '10 at 05:28

33

apt-cache --names-only search chm

gives several results.

answered Oct 19 '10 at 05:28

enzotib

93,831

15

+1 for helping people to find their own answers. But a more verbose answer, explaining the results would be better. – Javier Rivera Oct 19 '10 at 08:26
1

+1 for teaching ppl how to fish! – user1984 Apr 23 '20 at 16:33

score 19 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:00

19

kchmViewer

The main advantage of kchmviewer is the best support for non-English languages. Unlike other viewers, kchmviewer in most cases is able to correctly detect the chm file encoding and show it. It correctly shows the index and table of context in Russian, Spanish, Romanian, Korean, Chinese and Arabic help files, and with new search engine is able to search in any chm file no matter what language it is written.

kchmviewer

edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:00

Community

1

answered Oct 28 '10 at 16:55

scottl

2,588

This worked for me while the others didn't. – xji Aug 17 '18 at 10:06

score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 17 '18 at 10:08

9

I like the reader that comes with wine! (hh.exe?)

Open hh.exe that comes with wine and browse for your CHM file from it, or supply it as a command line argument:

$ wine /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/wine-development/fakedlls/hh.exe WindowsHalp.chm

edited Dec 17 '18 at 10:08

unhammer

2,271

answered May 17 '11 at 15:12

MarkovCh1

2,133

score 8 · Answer 6 · edited Sep 12 '14 at 10:40

8

Use browser extensions

What could be better than a web-browser to view web-pages?

CHMFox is an excellent CHM file reader. It is much better than all the third party programs that others are suggesting, which are mostly lacking many web-browser capabilities that Firefox and alike have.

I initially suggested the CHM reader extension for Firefox, but it isn't actively maintained anymore.

edited Sep 12 '14 at 10:40

LiveWireBT

28,763

answered Mar 27 '11 at 07:09

Julio

303

5

There is a new firefox add-on called ChmFox 1.2. Supposed to be a replacement for the old CHM reader project. you can find it at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chmfox/ – Julio Jul 21 '11 at 20:33
Cannot install CHM reader, but ChmFox is good. – Stefano May 08 '14 at 07:39
Thanks for the recommendation. I have installed the add-on (ChmFox) but firefox doesn't open the file, it just tries to re-download it from the local storage. Would you please suggest what should I do to fix this? – arman_aegit May 10 '17 at 06:12
2

The link is broken. Currently, there's no CHMFox extension in Firefox Add-ons. I think it has been removed. – MAChitgarha Jul 17 '19 at 11:23

score 7 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 19 '18 at 18:24

7

As an alternative, since the CHM format is not very popular you can convert it to PDF using chm2pdf:

sudo apt-get install chm2pdf
chm2pdf --webpage your.chm

This will produce a your.pdf file. As an alternative you can use the --book or --continuous options instead of --webpage; more info here http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-convert-chm-files-into-pdf-files-in-ubuntu.html

edited Sep 19 '18 at 18:24

Boann

117

answered Mar 11 '16 at 14:27

rsilva4

201

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 24 '11 at 16:13

2

Also a plugin called CHM Reader exists for Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3235/

edited Jun 24 '11 at 16:13

RolandiXor

51,541

answered Oct 28 '10 at 17:41

here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3235/ – hhlp Oct 28 '10 at 17:44

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 13 '19 at 09:39

2

Calibre is a library manager that can read all sorts of book formats, CHM included.

answered Aug 13 '19 at 09:39

Adrien H

233

score 2 · Answer 10 · edited Sep 19 '18 at 18:18

extract_chmLib does a very good job of converting chm (compiled html) files into htm format. It is in the Ubuntu repository in the package libchm-bin.

extract_chmLib maintains the full functionality of the original.. However, I did need to rename files to lowercase, for one .chm (becaue chm is a Windows format which is not case-sensitive like Linux), but the overall result is ideal for me...

Here are a couple of links...

score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 11 '16 at 15:38

2

In addition to the Firefox extension(s), there's a neat Chrome app called Chumium that does the job.

answered Apr 11 '16 at 15:38

miq

123

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 10 '14 at 21:39

In Ubuntu Software Center you can do a search for "chm" (no quotes) and find some decent chm viewers.

However, while using them, I'm always missing the scaling features in firefox (to make everything bigger - not just fonts).

Therefore, my favorite CHM viewer is Firefox itself via the ChmFox extension.

score 1 · Answer 13 · edited Sep 19 '18 at 18:19

1

There are a lot of CHM readers. You can find them in Software Center. Just type chm.

edited Sep 19 '18 at 18:19

Boann

117

answered Oct 23 '10 at 11:19

rovshango

1,804

score 1 · Answer 14 · edited Jan 13 '18 at 15:15

1

sudo apt-get install kchmviewer

This worked for me on Ubuntu 16.04

edited Jan 13 '18 at 15:15

Zanna

70,465

answered Jan 13 '18 at 14:46

Ranjitha B S

11

It works on Ubuntu 18.04 as well :) – Aminu Kano Jan 26 '19 at 08:20

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered May 20 '19 at 06:27

0

By default ubuntu doesn't provide any chm reader.

If you have installed wine, then by default it provides one package named hh.

Right click on file.
Open with wine
Just select hh as default option it shows and select

answered May 20 '19 at 06:27

Rahul

321

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Nov 08 '21 at 16:46

0

Sumatra PDF can display .chm files also. Although, Sumatra PDF is a Windows program, you can just download the "portable version" and run it under Wine.

answered Nov 08 '21 at 16:46

FedKad

10,515

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Oct 19 '10 at 07:07

0

I prefer GnoCHM.

answered Oct 19 '10 at 07:07

1

gnochm isn't available in maverick 10.10 – hhlp Oct 19 '10 at 16:02
1

why gnochm is any more on Ubuntu repository? – neuromancer Apr 07 '11 at 10:19

How to view CHM files?

17 Answers17

xChm Viewer

ChmSee

kchmViewer

Use browser extensions