15-Minute Reviews :: Total HTML Converter v1.4

Howdy all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Total HTML Converter version 1.4 by CoolUtils.com – An application to aid you converting HTML files into PDF, DOC, JPG and more.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“A most efficient yet easy-to-use utility that converts html files to doc, pdf, xls, jpg, or txt files. The most difficult thing is to decide what format you need. Everything else is quite easy. You just select the files and the target format, then press Ok. HTML Converter will do the rest for you. Converting doesn’t have to be timetaking.

Use batch converting if you deal with large amount of files. Some people find handling the program through command line more convenient and fast. Use Html Converter and all tedious converting manipulations will turn out to be funny.”

Quick Pros

• Interface is very straightforward
• Batch functionality good for doing an assortment of pages
• Conversion process is fairly quick (when functioning)

Quick Cons

• When setting an output folder with the ‘Floppy’ icon it misses the trailing backslash
• When attempted to use the URL to convert, all it resulted in an error; All other conversions after result in blank pages
• Does not render CSS well at all (Try gmail.com, slashdot.com and otherwise with it.)

Expansion

I was about to start looking for an alternate for converting my websites to JPEG easier than using either PDF first then taking a JPG from there, or using a print screen application, both are awkward methods of handling it. With an straight-forward interface, batching functionality (with material saved on your hard drive or through an accessible network drive,) and the conversion process runs really quick (when it works.) If you run this application on pages that don’t use CSS, it is wonderful for functioning.

All is not great in this application however. I found that when I chose an output folder using the ‘Floppy’ icon (Which brings you to a Save As dialog) and you select a folder, what happens is that it drops the last backslash and you end up with something like C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktopbladedthoth.jpg – Ending the file in your Administrator folder with the name of Desktopbladedthoth.jpg or similar. Not that hard to fix.

First time I attempted to convert bladedthoth.com I saved it from my web browser and tried that – This was my initial mistake trying it this method, because I realised that Firefox did not alter the CSS to reflect the frame images (This is something that Mozilla needs to clean up.) So I re-started from my drive-side version of my work (My build of the layout offline initially.) to see what would happen – A lot of similarities however to my first test-run. It doesn’t follow CSS very well – I had text all over the place and the menu buttons not playing nicely or showing up at all.

My next attempt was to type my web address directly into Total HTML Converter and see more confirmation of lack of CSS support. I tried to convert it anyways. When I did so, I got the following error: “An error occurred in the secure channel support” – Every page convert after that was a white blank page, requiring me to restart the application. I tried to look at a few other pages through the built-in browser to confirm my issue with CSS. gmail.com, slashdot.com and others. All butchered the CSS or worse, totally non-existent. I tried to convert slashdot to see what it’d do, but I got the error “Not enough storage is available to process this command.”

Final Verdict

I did fight with this application for quite some time, hoping that I could make something work well. I found that tables-based sites with no CSS worked well (Except it dropped the background color – forcing you to choose the color – least convienient for JPGs.) Really, with the riddle of bugs, poor rendering and lack of decent CSS support, I just can not recommend this application before it matures more. Unless you have tables-based site you wish to screenshot, I can’t suggest it is worth downloading. For $39.90, I would hope for the ability to render pages correctly, and not fail on converting others.

Posted by BladedThoth on Monday, May 21, 2007