Webfiles that include images??

[Blankscreen]

I've been looking for a file type where you can put text and images into the one file and post it onto a website. At present the universal option seems to be to use an html file with links to jpeg image files that you upload separately. Microsoft developed a file in the nineties called a "Web Archive, single file, *mht" that includes both text and images in the one file, but some browsers won't open it so it's not much use for websites. Does anyone know if there's another simple file type that can do this that most browsers will open? A pdf file will do it but it's more complex and requires a seperate program to open it.

It puzzles me as to why nobody has combined the html and jpeg file types to produce a simple file type that you can paste images into directly like you can paste tables into an html file directly, and which can be opened by all browsers.

Any ideas anyone?

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

DOC (requires Word Viewer), or PDF (requires Adobe Reader) ?

[Blankscreen]

I don't have Word so I can't experiment but I don't think you can post a doc file that includes an image, onto a website without posting the image as a separate file - someone please correct me if I'm wrong - I hope I am.

[Scarecrow Man]

A DOC file will include images within the file.

Unfortunatley, the way HTML works, you cannot have an image loaded into the HTML file. It points to the location of the image, but cannot imbed the image.

here is a trick that apparently works with Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and Safari, but not IE.

[-pops-]

Why not PDF?

Just about every computer connected to the Internet has Adobe reader (or equivalent) installed and if it doesn't, you can provide a link to the Adobe website to allow the user to download it. There are less bloated alternatives as well - like this.

There are very good reasons that PDF is so very widely used - part of that being its ability to do just as you want.

You don't need to spend stacks of cash on buying Adobe Acrobat to be able to write PDF files, there are a number of low cost (or even free) alternatives - this, for example.

[Blankscreen]

That's a very interesting blog conversation Scarecrow Man - thanks - I'll study the various ideas they suggest.

Thanks for those pdf links -pops-. I'll download both the Foxit reader and the PrimoPDF file creator and try them out - it's time I leaned how to work with pdf files.

I will also post onto a linux forum if I can find a good one, and see if the linux community have developed any file types that you can post onto a website that include text and images within the file. They may have developed one that most browsers will open.

I have Explorer 6. If anyone reading this has the most recent version of Explorer, could you take a moment and click on File - Save As - and see if Web Archive single file (*mht) is among the choise of file types you can save a file as? - thanks.

[r4may]

PDF files can be created using Open Office which is another word processing package free from:- http://www.openoffice.org/

[Scarecrow Man]

Save as...

Web Page, Complete (*.htm, *.html)

Web Page Archive, Single File (*.mht)

Web Page, HTML Only (*.htm, *.html)

Text File (*.txt)

Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2

[Tony]

I am running IE 7 Beta and it does show this in the Save As Box

Web Archive single file (*mht)

Tony

[Blankscreen]

R4may I'll check out your Open Office suggestion - I have a CD with that suite on it - if I can get it to load on my late nineties computer.

Thanks Scarecrow Man and Tony - looks like Microsoft thinks it's worth continuing with that file type. Now if they would give the code or whatever is needed to the other browser makers it might become a universal file type.

jschiwal on a Linux forum informed me that "The Konqueror web browser has a "archive web page" in the Tools menu. You can browse it from the Konqueror web browser directly. Essentially the .war file is a tarball that contains the files needed to browse the page offline. This isn't "Universal", because you either need to browse the .war file using Konqueror, or untar the file in it's own directory; E.G., "tar xvzf <filename.war>" to restore the original files."

[Blankscreen]

I've heard talk of this for the future, but does anyone know if there are any websites now in existence you can visit where you can use browsers stored on their website to open websites and view files? This would enable people who don't have Explorer browsers to view MS mht archive files, and websites which include mht files.

[scuzzman]

You could use WMF. Though, be careful, as there was a recent vulnerability in WMP files and people may be nervous of them :)