MHTML documents combine a web page and its resources into a file format, making them easier to maintain than HTML. They have a standardized structure but can have compatibility issues when opened in different browsers. MHTML documents are static and commonly used to send large web pages by email.
An MHTML document is a type of archive document that combines a web page and all of its resources. This is significantly different from HTML, which contains only the text of a web page. While HTML is simply a markup language, MHTML is a full file format. Because an MHTML document is a file, rather than a file plus folder of resources, it’s often much easier to maintain than plain HTML documents.
In 1999, a standard was created that determines how an MHTML document should be structured. All documents of this type use the standard to some extent. There are many varieties of MHTML documents that come from this standard. The differences between document types come not from how documents are structured, but from how they are saved. While the format of a document is standardized, the method by which a web page and its resources are processed into that document is not.
Differences in document processing can cause compatibility issues when an MHTML document is opened in a web browser. Some document formats can be opened quite well in different browsers, but others have a proprietary format that can only be opened in the browser that created them. As a rule, it’s usually best to open these documents in the same browser in which they were created, because this offers the most faithful recreation of the original web page. Opening a document in a different browser usually doesn’t cause significant layout difficulties, although the possibility exists. Also, some browsers don’t support MHTML documents without plug-ins or add-ons.
The version of a web page contained in these documents is static, meaning they do not have the ability to dynamically update with a web page. Viewing an MHTML document is similar to viewing an HTML document in that both documents are snapshots of a web page at a particular point in time. To create an updated document, the page must be re-saved at a new point in time.
MHTML documents are commonly used to send large web pages by email or to facilitate the transfer of smaller web pages. Since you can’t easily attach a resource folder to an email, the MHTML document archive format is a quick and easy way around this problem. Sending these documents by email has a wide variety of applications, particularly in web publishing and collaboration.
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