Converting .hlp to other formats

[Daniel Feenberg]

I'd like to make an .html or .pdf file out of an existing .hlp file. Neither of

 translate foo.hlp  foo.html
 translate foo.hlp  foo.pdf

work because there are no translators for those pairs. I then tried

log using foo
help  foo
log close

however the .resulting foo.smcl file does not include any output from the help command. I know there is a way, since I did make it work once years ago. What am I missing?

[Nick Cox]

.hlp is the extension used some versions ago before .sthlp. If the file is based on SMCL, then trans(smcl2pdf) should work fairly well. Otherwise, it works, but looks no better than the file would look in any common or garden text editor.