Convert CHM to TXT — Free Online Converter
Convert Compiled HTML Help (.chm) to Plain Text (.txt) online for free. Fast, secure document conversion with no watermarks or registration....
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How to Convert
Upload your .chm file by dragging it into the upload area or clicking to browse.
Choose your output settings. The default settings work great for most files.
Click Convert and download your .txt file when it's ready.
About CHM to TXT Conversion
CHM to TXT conversion extracts the text content from Microsoft Compiled HTML Help files and produces a plain text file stripped of all formatting, images, and HTML markup. The result is pure text that can be read in any text editor, searched with grep, processed by scripts, indexed by search engines, and stored in version control systems.
Our converter extracts the HTML pages from the CHM archive, strips all HTML tags, CSS, JavaScript, and embedded resources, preserves the text content with basic structure (newlines for paragraphs, indentation for lists), and outputs a clean UTF-8 text file.
Why Convert CHM to TXT?
Plain text is the universal data format. When you need to search through CHM documentation using grep, awk, or other text processing tools, TXT conversion provides immediate access. Text files are also ideal for feeding into AI language models, search indexes, knowledge bases, and natural language processing pipelines.
Version control systems like Git work best with plain text. Converting CHM documentation to TXT enables tracking changes, diffing versions, and collaborating through pull requests — workflows impossible with binary CHM files.
Common Use Cases
- Extracting searchable text from CHM files for grep, awk, and command-line text processing workflows
- Feeding CHM documentation content into AI models, chatbots, and natural language processing systems
- Creating version-controlled documentation from CHM files for Git-based collaboration
- Indexing CHM help file content in full-text search engines and knowledge base systems
- Archiving the textual content of CHM files in the most future-proof format possible
How It Works
The conversion decompresses the CHM's ITS archive, extracts all HTML pages in topic order, strips HTML tags using parser-based methods (not regex), collapses whitespace, preserves paragraph breaks, converts HTML entities to UTF-8 characters, and concatenates the result into a single text file. Table content is rendered as tab-separated or space-padded columns. List items are prefixed with markers (-, *, 1., etc.). Code blocks are preserved with their original indentation.
Quality & Performance
All textual content from the CHM is preserved accurately. Formatting information (bold, italic, font sizes, colors) is lost since TXT is unformatted. Tables are approximated with spacing. Images are omitted entirely — only their alt text is included, if present. The output is readable and logically structured but lacks the visual presentation of the original.
Device Compatibility
| Device | CHM | TXT |
|---|---|---|
| Windows PC | Partial | Partial |
| macOS | Partial | Partial |
| iPhone/iPad | Partial | Partial |
| Android | Partial | Partial |
| Linux | Partial | Partial |
| Web Browser | No | No |
Tips for Best Results
- 1Use the TXT output with grep to search across all CHM documentation from the command line
- 2Feed the TXT into a RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) system for AI-powered documentation Q&A
- 3Store the TXT in Git for version tracking and collaborative editing of documentation content
- 4Process the TXT with Python or Node.js scripts for bulk documentation analysis and transformation
- 5Keep the original CHM file — TXT extraction is irreversible and loses all formatting and images
CHM to TXT extracts pure text content from Windows help files for search, scripting, AI processing, and version control workflows. It is the most portable and future-proof extraction possible.