This topic provides some important background information that will help you to understand how to use Help+Manual with languages that cannot be edited or displayed properly without Unicode.
In addition to reading this section please also see International languages setup and Language Settings for details on configuring your project output in the language you are using, both with Unicode-based languages and other languages.
Unicode support in Help+Manual's output formats:
Provided the other requirements listed below are met Help+Manual can output projects written in Unicode-based languages to all its output formats.
Windows versions supporting Unicode:
Help+Manual requires Windows 7 or later. You should really be using Windows 10 or 11.
Windows language requirements for developing CHM files:
Although you can publish your Unicode language projects to CHM on any language version of Windows that is properly configured, you can only test published CHM files generated with Unicode languages on a version of Windows with a matching language.
For example, Chinese CHM files can only be tested properly on a Chinese version of Windows. You may be able to display the help, but things like full-text search and the index will not work correctly. The table of contents may also be displayed with garbled characters.
This means that in practise, a matching language version of Windows is required for development of help in Unicode-based languages Microsoft HTML Help CHM files. You need a Chinese Windows to develop Chinese CHM files, Thai Windows to develop Thai CHM files, and so on.
General requirements for publishing projects:
WebHelp, eWriter Help, ePub eBooks, DOCX, Visual Studio Help:
You can publish Unicode projects to these formats provided you have the necessary language support installed to display and edit the language you are using. Help+Manual itself handles the Unicode output to WebHelp, eBooks and MS Word DOCX, and the MS Help 2.0 compiler is fully Unicode-compliant.
HTML Help CHM:
The Microsoft help compiler for HTML Help (CHM files) is extremely old and it does not support Unicode directly. This means that some special configuration settings in Windows are required when you are publishing projects using Unicode-based languages like Chinese or Thai to CHM files. Specifically, you must change the "system locale" of Windows to match the language you are using. This is necessary to enable the HTML Help compiler to process the language correctly for Unicode output and convert it to the internal double-byte format.
Requirements for viewing Unicode-based help:
WebHelp, eWriter Help, eBooks, MS Word DOCX:
You can view Unicode help in these formats with any current version of Windows, provided you have the necessary language support installed to display the language in question. The browser and word processor used to display WebHelp and DOCX must be Unicode-enabled, of course.
HTML Help CHM:
You can display CHM files generated from Unicode-based language projects with any current version of Windows, provided you have the necessary support installed to display the language you are using. However, some features of the help, such as the full-text search, the index, and possibly also the TOC, will only work properly on Windows versions with a matching language.
Visual Studio Help:
Visual Studio Help is only supported on Windows Windows XP or later. However, it is fully Unicode-compliant and will display properly with all features on any language version of these versions of Windows provided they have support installed for the language of your help file. Note that Visual Studio Help is only relevant for documenting programming components in the Visual Studio .NET environment. It cannot be used for documenting normal application programs.
See also:
