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I wrote a product manual using HTML that includes images and I wanted to save it in one file that I could send for customers for viewing. Someone suggested converting it to a PDF but the problem is that although HTML links/bookmarks work in PDFs they are not easy to follow (Adobe reader doesn't have Back and Forward buttons for links) and it's not easy to read. Then someone suggested opening my HTML in IE and saving it as .mht file. I did so and the page looks great, except one "small" fact that all internal links/bookmarks don't work. For some stupid reason they all have absolute URLs that obviously don't work on another computer.

So any suggestions how to save HTML for viewing in one file (offline)?

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    Have you ruled out publishing the HTML on a web-server? If necessary you could create user-ids and passwords for each customer. May 24, 2012 at 17:30
  • Yes, that would be a good idea. I was still thinking of providing some offline method in case a person can't access the web.
    – ahmd1
    May 24, 2012 at 17:47

2 Answers 2

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Possible options include

Convert the HTML and associated files to an executable. I asked Google about "html to exe" and saw some useful looking results.

Convert the HTML to a common word-processing format. I'd guess that RTF is readable on a wide range of platforms. If (as most business people assume) your customers can read Microsoft Word documents, you could try that format or the more open OpenDocument format. Again, Google is a useful recource

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Windows only solution:

  1. Create the batch file manual.bat consisting of following line:

    start manual.html
    
  2. Download and install Bat To Exe Converter.

  3. Open Bat To Exe Converter and apply the following settings:

    Batch file: manual.bat
    Save As:    manual.exe
    Options:
        Visibility:        Invisible application
        Temporary files:   Delete at exit
        Working directory: Temporary directory
    Include:
        manual.html
        image1.png
        image2.png
        .
        .
        .
    
  4. (optional) Fill the tab Versioninformations with meaningful descriptions and an icon, so your manual doesn't look like a virus.

  5. Click Compile.

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