How to send multiple HTML files as one?

February 14, 2011 12:09 AM

A way to send multiple HTML files without having to use something as complicated as ZIP.

This is a very useful set of documentation for our senior volunteers. I've made an offline version of it (i.e. downloaded the 27 pages) and I would like to share it with them. But as they're senior volunteers, I guess a lot of them will have difficulty with a ZIP archive.

Is there a way that I can send it to them as one file that will load in their browser? I know I can just put all the text in a single page, but that will make a huge file which I won't be able to upload and takes forever to load in a browser. Something like a self-extracting HTML archive?

thanks!

posted by mahershalal to computers & internet (9 answers total)

Zip can produce a self-extracting EXE file.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:11 AM on February 14, 2011

Turn it into a PDF?
posted by Mikey-San at 12:15 AM on February 14, 2011

You could make them into a CHM file.
posted by neushoorn at 12:22 AM on February 14, 2011

A CHM file is a very neat idea, though I think it won't be as easy for them to search for a specific name like it is in a browser.

I've tried a single PDF file, which led me to try a single Word file without any markup and that seemed to do the trick: 834 kB for 1889 pages.

So thank you!
posted by mahershalal at 12:42 AM on February 14, 2011

Newer versions of windows don't automatically include the software necessary to open CHM files. It's a pain.
posted by odinsdream at 5:08 AM on February 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Every version of Windows since 95 has built-in support for ZIP. I know you say you don't want anything "as complicated" as zip, but really… it's a single click. You don't get much more easy than a single click.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:24 AM on February 14, 2011

Get a free dropbox account, which includes a directory called "public," anything you put in that directory is on the internet, its like a mini-web server. Drop your html file in there and send them the link by email, it'll be a plain old webpage.
posted by tempythethird at 5:46 AM on February 14, 2011

burn it to a CD, and make the autorun open a webbrowser...
posted by fozzie33 at 5:54 AM on February 14, 2011

Autorun is usually off by default in Windows now, and it may show up as live content that will continually bleep at them with demands as to whether or not they wish to trust it and allow the content... better to use Dropbox in my mind, it is web-based and will show up as such.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:56 AM on February 14, 2011