INF/HLP (OS/2)

File Format
Name	INF/HLP (OS/2)
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Help files INF/HLP (OS/2)
Extension(s)	.inf, .hlp

INF and HLP are two variants of a help file format associated with OS/2's "Information Presentation Facility", and used by some OS/2 applications. Files can be viewed with an OS/2 app named VIEW.EXE.

INF and HLP files are usually created by compiling a source format called IPF.

Identification

Files begin with ASCII "HS", followed (usually?) by "P".

The next byte is (usually?) 0x01 for INF, or 0x10 for HLP.

Specifications

• Inside INF
• Marcus Gröber's OS/2 page → inf02b.zip → INF02B.DOC: OS/2 2.x Information Presentation Facility (IPF) Data Format - version 2

Sample files

• warptris.zip → WARPTRIS.INF, WARPTRIS.HLP
• zipct245.zip → ZipCntrl.inf, ZipCntrl.hlp
• DMPEGV2.ZIP → MPEGPM.HLP
• https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/document/os2Help/

Links

• Wikipedia: Information Presentation Facility
• Marcus Gröber's OS/2 page → Tools and documentation for the INF/HLP file format