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General
- What Is HTMLDOC?
HTMLDOC is a program that generates indexed HTML, Adobe® PostScript®, and PDF files from HTML "source" files that you create using your favorite HTML editor. HTMLDOC includes a simple GUI interface to manage your HTML files and automatically (re)generate files for viewing and printing.
HTMLDOC can also be used on your web server to generate files on-the-fly.
Please note that HTMLDOC does not convert from PDF or PostScript back to HTML.
- Is there a mailing list for HTMLDOC?
Yes. Please see the Newsgroups page for information on subscribing to the list, posting messages, or browsing the existing messages.
- Is there a newsgroup for HTMLDOC?
Yes, just point your newsreader at news.easysw.com and subscribe to the htmldoc.general and htmldoc.announce newsgroups.
You can also browse, search, and post to these groups with your web browser at:
http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/newsgroups.php - Do I have to pay to use HTMLDOC?
That depends on which version of HTMLDOC you are using. If you use the commercial version of HTMLDOC from this web site, then yes, you have to pay to use HTMLDOC. We sell HTMLDOC Basic along with optional software support depending upon your needs.
The open source version of HTMLDOC from htmldoc.org is provided under the terms of the GNU General Public License and may be used at no charge. That said, since you aren't paying for the open source software you do not receive any support or warranty of any kind.
All purchases of the commercial version of HTMLDOC fund the continued development of the open source version of HTMLDOC.
- What do I get when I purchase HTMLDOC Basic?
HTMLDOC Basic provides the HTMLDOC software for Linux® 2.4 or higher, MacOS® X 10.2 or higher, Microsoft Windows® 2000 or higher, and Solaris® 7 or higher.
HTMLDOC Basic also provides 30 days of free support for installation and licensing questions.
- Can I evaluate HTMLDOC before I buy it?
Yes, you can download the HTMLDOC software and request a 21-day demo license for free from the following location:
http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/software.php - What is your refund policy?
Since free 21-day trial licenses are available to evaluate the software, we do not provide refunds for the HTMLDOC software. You can download the HTMLDOC software and request a 21-day demo license for free from the following location:
http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/software.php - Do I have to pay Adobe to generate PDF files?
No. The PDF format and specification may be freely used by any individual or company without paying any licensing or use fee to Adobe. For more information, please consult section 1.4 of the PDF specification (on page 5 in the PDF 1.3 specification) for a complete explanation.
Also note that the HTMLDOC software does not use Adobe products to produce PDF files. The conversion code is entirely the creation of Easy Software Products.
- Do I need to buy Adobe Acrobat to use HTMLDOC?
No, HTMLDOC is a completely independent software program and does not require Acrobat to generate PDF files.
- Why just HTML?
Why just HTML and not SGML or XML? For starters, HTML editors and tools are more widely available and inexpensive (if not free!) than SGML and XML tools. Also, while SGML and XML provide an incredible range of capabilities, that functionality makes parsing and formatting them extremely difficult.
HTMLDOC will likely add support for the XHTML standard in a future release.
- How do I enter a license from the command-line?
Run the following command to enter your HTMLDOC license on the command-line:
su ENTER htmldoc --license your-license ENTER
where "your-license" is the HTMLDOC license string.
Licensing/Legal Questions
- I thought that HTMLDOC was open source software?!?
HTMLDOC is both open source and commercial software. We maintain the open source version of HTMLDOC at the following web site:
http://www.htmldoc.org/The open source version of HTMLDOC is provided only in source code form and comes with no support, while the commercial version of HTMLDOC is provided only in binary (executable) form and comes with 30 days or one year of support depending on the product you purchase.
All purchases of the commercial version of HTMLDOC fund the continued development of the open source version of HTMLDOC.
- Can I license HTMLDOC under different terms?
Yes, by purchasing a source code license from Easy Software Products. For more information, please contact us at +1.301.373.9600 or info@easysw.com.
- Is it possible to embed HTMLDOC in my own product?
Yes, by purchasing a source code license from Easy Software Products. For more information, please contact us at +1.301.373.9600 or info@easysw.com.
- Does HTMLDOC use LZW compression?
No.
In the distance past (PDF 1.1, Acrobat 2.x), LZW was the only supported compression format. However, Flate (aka ZIP aka LZ77) compression has been available since PDF 1.2 (Acrobat 3.0), and is the only type of lossless compression (for text and small images) supported by HTMLDOC.
HTMLDOC also uses JPEG compression when writing larger images.
At no time does HTMLDOC try to compress data using the (inferior) LZW algorithm.
- Do I need an import/export license to use HTMLDOC outside the United States?
No. HTMLDOC falls under License Exception TSU because the authentication and encryption software is provided as open source software. The ECCN number associated with this exception is 5D002. We have registered our open source software through the BIS (formerly BXA) which satisfies the notification requirements as described at:
http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/PubAvailEncSourceCodeNofify.htmlSource code for the HTMLDOC and OpenSSL software is made available at the following locations:
http://www.htmldoc.org/ http://www.openssl.org/The harmonized export code for HTMLDOC is 8524.31.0030 (Computer Software).
Download Questions
- What platforms are supported?
HTMLDOC is supported on Linux® (Intel®) 2.4 and higher, MacOS® X 10.2 and higher, Microsoft Windows® 2000 and higher, and Solaris® 7 and higher.
- Where can I download the source code?
Source code is unsupported and available for download from our htmldoc.org web site.
- Where can I download binaries?
Binaries for Linux® (Intel®) 2.4 and higher, MacOS® X 10.2 and higher, Microsoft Windows® 2000 and higher, and Solaris® 7 and higher can be downloaded from the following page:
http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/software.php
Functionality Questions
- What level of HTML is supported?
HTMLDOC currently supports most HTML 3.2 and some HTML 4.0 elements. HTMLDOC does not support HTML 4.0 tables, attributes, stylesheets, or scripting. HTML 4.0 functionality is currently in development and will be provided in a future release of HTMLDOC. We do not have any estimates or schedules for new HTMLDOC releases available to the public.
- Are stylesheets supported?
HTMLDOC does not currently support stylesheets. The initial implementation of CSS1 and CSS2 is currently in development and will be provided in a future release of HTMLDOC. We do not have any estimates or schedules for new HTMLDOC releases available to the public.
- How fast is HTMLDOC?
The speed of HTMLDOC depends a lot on the size of the HTML files you are converting, the number and size of the embedded images, and the speed of your computer.
The current HTMLDOC Users Guide contains 32 images and formats to 128 pages. When generated on an 2.4GHz Pentium 4 Xeon computer running Linux, the PostScript manual file takes 2.5 seconds to generate, or about 51 pages per second. The PDF manual file takes 2.3 seconds to generate, or about 55 pages pages/sec. Both files are generated with JPEG compression enabled. The PDF manual also has maximum Flate compression (
--compression=9) enabled. - Does HTMLDOC support remote documents/URLs?
Yes, HTMLDOC supports remote documents using
http://andhttps://URLs. - Does HTMLDOC support secure (encrypted) URLs?
Yes, HTMLDOC supports both SSL and TLS encryption using
https://URLs. - Can HTMLDOC generate encrypted PDF files?
Yes, HTMLDOC supports both 40-bit and 128-bit encryption of PDF files.
- Can HTMLDOC generate 128-bit encrypted PDF files like Acrobat 5.0?
Yes. 128-bit encryption is automatically used when generating PDF files in Acrobat 5.0 (PDF 1.4) mode.
- Is UTF-8/Unicode/Chinese/Japanese text supported?
HTMLDOC does not currently support multi-byte text. Full support for multi-byte text is currently in development and will be provided in a future release of HTMLDOC. We do not have any estimates or schedules for new HTMLDOC releases available to the public.
- Can I use ASP with HTMLDOC?
Since ASP does not support the execution of external executables, you will need a third party wrapper or add-on in conjunction with HTMLDOC. There is a third-party add-on called ASPexecTM that allows your ASP pages to access external programs. It can be found at http://www.serverobjects.com/.
Please note that Easy Software Products does not provide support for ASPexec and has no involvement in its development.
- Is there a DLL that can be called?
No, there are only two executables that can be called upon - the GUI executable and the command-line executable.
- Can HTMLDOC embed fonts?
HTMLDOC 1.8.20 and higher support embedding of the base Type 1 fonts: Courier, Helvetica, Symbol, and Times. HTMLDOC does not currently allow embedding of arbitrary fonts specified by the HTML
FONTelement.Each embedded font adds approximately 84k of data to PostScript files and 43k of data to PDF files. The full set of Type 1 fonts adds 1094k to PostScript files and 555k to PDF files.
- How can i embed my own fonts?
There is currently no way to embed fonts other than the base fonts supported by HTMLDOC. Support for embedding both Type 1 and TrueType fonts is currently in development and will be provided in a future release of HTMLDOC. We do not have any estimates or schedules for new HTMLDOC releases available to the public.
- Does HTMLDOC support forms?
HTMLDOC does not currently support HTML forms. A future release of HTMLDOC may add limited support, however since HTML forms differ significantly from PDF forms and since PostScript output is by definition static, any form support that we add will be extremely limited. We do not have any estimates or schedules for new HTMLDOC releases available to the public.
Troubleshooting Questions
- Why does the format change when converting from HTML to PDF or Postscript?
First, verify that your HTML conforms to the HTML 3.2 specification using one of many HTML "lint" or "validator" applications available on the 'net. The W3C has links to a few good ones that can be used on-line. If you use HTML that does not conform to the HTML specification, then what you get out of HTMLDOC may or may not be what you expect. Just because your favorite browser displays the HTML as you like, don't assume that your HTML is conformant!
Second, HTML is not (by definition) a WYSIWYG format. The formatting varies depending on the software and output device. All the HTML specification defines is the general behavior and function of each HTML element (P, H1, B, TABLE, etc.) HTMLDOC follows the W3C display recommendations in the HTML specification. When no behavior is explicitly specified, it chooses a behavior that most closely resembles Netscape/Mozilla.
Third, PostScript and PDF are quite different than HTML. Printed documents have fixed page sizes, while a web browser can provide scrollbars for content that goes beyond the window boundaries. Pagination often has formatting side effects that are not an issue when viewing the HTML on-line. Scripting languages offer dynamic content when viewed with a web browser, but that content will be unavailable when converting to PostScript or PDF for a variety of reasons. Some web pages use custom fonts which may not be available when printing or viewing PostScript and PDF files.
Finally, please read the Users Manual that comes with the software! Chapter 6 provides a reference for the HTML elements that HTMLDOC supports as well as the HTML comments you can insert to control and tune the final output.
- Why Does the & Character Not Appear in the Output?
HTML reserves the & character for doing character escapes, so you need to use & to get the ampersand in your documents (and not just for HTMLDOC!)
- Why Does the < Character Not Appear in the Output?
HTML reserves the < character for the start of an HTML element name, e.g. <BODY>. You need to use < to get the less-than sign in your documents (and not just for HTMLDOC!)
Windows-Specific Issues
- How can I get wildcards (*.htm) to work?
Because of the way that the Windows command prompt supports wildcards (the application is responsible for expanding them), and because the usual workaround for Windows applications has unwanted side-effects (it interferes with URL and CGI support), there is no way to use wildcards with HTMLDOC and the standard command prompt on Windows.
Third-party add-on tools for Windows such as Cygwin can be used with HTMLDOC to support wildcards, however.
- Can I use HTMLDOC with Apache on Windows?
Yes! The easiest way to do this is to copy the htmldoc.exe, libeay32.dll, msvcr71.dll, and ssleay32.dll files to the Apache cgi-bin directory, typically C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache\cgi-bin.
If you are using Apache 2.0.30 or higher, you will also need to enable PATH_INFO support by adding the following line to your httpd.conf file:
AcceptPathInfo On