903 chm files useless with pocketbook pro 903

[nirious]

When I try to open a chm file, the behavious is weird.
It tells me in the status bar my book only has 6 pages.(it has many more)

Using the hardware button, I can advance to the next page, but after six pages, the next button does nothing. Pressing it just refreshes the last page.

When I look at the chm using windows, I notice that page 1-6 on the reader corresponds to the

-table of contents (contains links to the chapters)
-back cover
-book info (year, publisher, isbn no etc)
which total at 6 pages on the reader.

When I think of it, it only shows all content untill you arrive at the first book icon if you open the chm file using the windows chm reader.

using the hardware table of contents button actually shows me the table of contents , but when I select any chapter or subchapter I am always redirected to the first page (page 1 of 6)

Luckily, the first page (page 1/6) also has links to the main chapters.
clicking on the links on this first page works ok.

So now I can see the first page of the first actual chapter.
status bar still says page 6/6.
Now I can actually use the hardware next button to go to the next page as long as I haver not reached the end of this chapter (I am using chapter for all text contained in one book or sheet icon in the windows chm reader)

When I reach the end of the chapter (recognized by the software "previous" and "next" buttons at the end of the text, pressing the hardware next button does again nothing but refreshing this page.

I actually have to get the stylus and click on the "next" button to advance to the next chapter or part of a chapter.
Then I can once again use the hardware next button until the end of the chapter, where I will once again have to click on "next" to get to the next chapter.

Meanwhile the page is still 6/6 accoring to the reader.

Now all this I can actually still live with.
What I find really annoying is the fact that when I accidentally pres the "hardware back" button, it returns me to page 5/6.
Meaning I return to the page with the info about the book!
And I have no page number to return to, and I can not use the hardware index.

So what I have to do is, press the back button until I am at page 1/6.
Guess the chapter I was in. (cfr the book icon in the windows reader)
Guess the sub chapter I was in. (cfr the page icon in the windows reader)
Than use the hardware button to advance to the page in the (sub)chapter, and find where I left off.


This way this software is not usable for reading chms!
It is as if there is no support for chm chapters in this reader and the contents is only reachable using the links in the document.
The chm reader used by pocketbook only looks at the files directly under the root and just ignores all the rest of the book.
If there were no links on the first page of this chm book, I would not even be able to go to any chapter!

So please add support for chapters.

Does anyone have encountered this problem, or is it related to this particular chm?
Any hints what I might do about it. maybe it is a setting?
What is the current reader pocketbook pro 903 uses to read chm's?
Can I install a different (better) chm reader?

I tried already converting it to pfd, but that was not readable (text and images missing, and when there was text, it was really small + the orrientation was wrong)

my pocketbook 903 has software version D903.2.0.5 20110314_121317
Is there a fix for this in an update to a newer version?

[Sil_liS]

I never tried chm files. Can you do bookmarks?

[Billi]

Have you only tried this one chm file? Or does this problem occur with all your chm files? Maybe the problem lies in the file itself and not with the pocketbook.

It is "fbreader" that is able to read chm files on the Pocketbook 903. You could try fbreader180, too.

Here is a thread from the German part of this forum which covers converting chm files:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70148

It is in German but you only need to follow the links. Last post of this thread mentions that you can convert chm to epub directly in Calibre with the latest version. (And if this conversion fails you can be quite sure that the problem is with the file). It's also possible to convert via Mobipocket Creator, the result will then be a mobi file.

Good luck!

[nirious]

Indeed, I just tried another chm file and that one handles the "chapters" ok.
bookmarks are ok,
number of pages is ok,
links are ok.
and pressing the hardware next page button goes to the first page of the next chapter when on the end of the previous, without the need to click with the pen on the software "next" button.

So why doesn't the previous one work the same?

I will compare both chm files to see if I can find a difference.

[nirious]

Using "html help workshop" I found that both of them had the same version info :-/
Compiled file version 3
Compiled with HHA Version 4.74.8702

So I took a wild guess:

I decompiled the faulty chm ebook,
I created a new project
I reused the TOC file and reimported all the decompiled html files.
I added an index (empty)
I compiled the new project (creates new chm file)
uploaded the chm to my PB and it works excelent now

Yey thx for the help Billi.
You pointed me in the right direction.

[Billi]

Glad that you figured it out and that you can read your book now. And hopefully your solution may help others too who have problems with chm-files.

[bablo]

Hi there,

Well, you're not the only one with these problems with CHM files on the Pocketbook Pro 903.

Yesterday I tried opening some CHM files I downloaded from the internet and they all have these problems:
- Reader shows only the pages of the current chapter and doesn't allow me to proceed to the next chapter. Selecting the first chapter in the table of contents gives me 1/5 pages, while the book has more than 600 pages.
- Chapter and paragraph titles, headers, footers and body text all have the same font. So markup is completely gone, which makes the ebooks hard to read.
- Sometimes I can't even go to next or previous page within a chapter.

It seems that CHM format is not properly supported, because I find it hard to believe there would be so many faulty CHM files scattered around the internet. I will try to convert these files to PDF, but that would of course remove the hypertext features of the document.