Bob Swanson offers his books in several electronic formats. This web page describes how to extract a stand-alone website book (“Website-in-a-box”) from a ZIP archive. Besides Bob’s books, you may find articles and books stored in this format at various free links, such as the MPHS article website. These file bundles can be stored with the ZIP extension, or with the HTMLZ extension. (For our purposes, these files are treated the same.)
Background
File archiving is as old as the Internet. One of the earliest, and longest-lived systems is called ZIP. One or more files are enclosed in a single file, usually with compression to save space and connect time.
When a number of web page components are stored together in one archive, I call it a “website-in-a-box”, a configuration that makes it easy to view a particular multipart document. Benefits of using this format are:
- You use only your web browser to view the e-document.
- You don’t need to be connected to the internet to read the book.
- You don’t need a special reader device, such as the Kindle Reader.
(This format is also called HTMLZ, which is a slightly enhanced ZIP bundle. For our purposes, these files are the same. Note that web browsers do not open the HTMLZ file natively. See later section on ZIP extraction).
Examples of such book offerings include:
- Domestic U. S. Military Facilities of the First World War, 2nd Edition
- Bluejacket Mail, A Postal History of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in the First World War
- the MPHS article website
First Steps
When you are dealing with a ZIP archive, you cannot use the enclosed electronic document(s), until you first extract all the component files from the ZIP archive.
If you order such a book in this format, you will receive a ZIP file containing the book, or a link from which you can download the book contents. Store this file on your computer or phone/tablet.
Extract the Book Files (Website)
Once downloaded, extracting the contents of ZIP files is very easy if you are using the Windows (tm) operating system. Simply double-click on the “.zip” file that you just downloaded. Windows versions after about “95” will automatically display the “Archive” contents to you. Copy the files from the content list of the archive to a “clean” (empty) working directory (folder) on your computer, phone, or tablet. At that point, you can use the enclosed file(s) and read the book.
If you are not using Windows, you can still extract ZIP archive contents. There is a very good free product called 7ZIP, which has been released for a wide variety of phones, tablets, and computer systems. Download and use that product (or App) to extract the ZIP contents. You can get a free copy of 7ZIP from the website 7ZIP Download.
Near the bottom of the web page linked above, are listed the non-Windows systems for which you can get a free copy of 7ZIP. Follow their installation instructions. Use your App “store” on the phone or tablet to get the 7ZIP App for your particular device.
Read ‘Website-in-a-Box’
How do you read the book that you unZIPed?
Once you have extracted the files into a new, empty, folder (directory) on your computer, phone, or tablet, the book should be ready to read. To read the book, make your web browser open the “index.html” file in that group of files just extracted.
(This is usually the “Open” menu selection.) Your browser will then become the document “reader” as you view the book you purchased. You do not need to be connected to the internet, and you do not need any special viewer tool, aside from your browser.
More Links
Technical Information
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