MHTML to PDF Converter

How to Convert MHTML to PDF

An MHTML file is a whole web page packed into one file. It is handy for saving a page, but awkward to share: many phones, mail systems and document tools do not know what to do with it. A PDF opens everywhere. This guide explains what is inside an MHTML or MHT file, the ways to convert MHTML to PDF, and how to get a clean result with this converter.

What is an MHTML file?

MHTML stands for MIME HTML. The format is described in RFC 2557, which reuses the structure of an email message to hold a web page. The file starts with a few headers and is then divided into parts by a boundary line. One part is the HTML. The others are the stylesheets, images and fonts the page needs. Each part carries a Content-Location header with its original address, so the page can still find its resources when it is opened offline.

Text parts are normally stored as quoted-printable and binary parts as base64. Both encodings come from RFC 2045, the core MIME standard. That is why an MHTML file opened in a text editor looks like an email full of =3D and long blocks of letters.

Three kinds of software write these files:

• Chrome, Edge, Opera and Brave. Choose Save as and pick "Webpage, Single File". The result is a .mhtml file with a Snapshot-Content-Location header that records the page address. Chrome on Android also stores downloaded pages as MHTML.
• Internet Explorer. Its "Web Archive, single file" option wrote .mht files. Many archives from the 2000s and 2010s are in this form.
• Microsoft Word and Excel. "Single File Web Page" saves a document as .mht. Reporting tools and help desks export the same way.

.mht and .mhtml are the same format with two extensions. Firefox does not open or save it without an extension, and Safari uses its own .webarchive format instead.

Why convert MHTML to PDF?

• Sharing. Anyone can open a PDF. An MHT attachment often gets the reply "what do I open this with?", and some mail filters block the extension.
• Phones and tablets. iPhones and iPads have no built-in MHTML viewer. PDFs open in the Files app and in every reader.
• Records. Invoices, booking confirmations, tickets and legal evidence are usually filed as PDF. Page numbers and a footer with the source URL make a saved page easier to cite.
• Printing. A PDF has fixed pages. You see the page breaks before you print.
• Long-term storage. PDF is an open standard, published as ISO 32000. MHTML never became a formal web standard, and browser support for it is uneven.

Ways to convert an MHT file to PDF

Opening the file in Chrome or Edge and pressing Ctrl+P works well for one page on a computer. It is slow for a folder of files and does not work on an iPhone. LibreOffice is a good free PDF exporter for documents, but it is a word processor, not a browser, so pages built with modern CSS rarely keep their layout. Upload converters are convenient, but a saved page can contain account details, order numbers or internal data, and uploading it means handing that to someone else's server.

Convert MHTML to PDF with this tool

1. Add files. Drop one or more .mhtml or .mht files on the page, or choose them. Plain .html files are accepted too. You can add up to 50 files of up to 200 MB each.
2. Check the list. Each file shows its page title, the number of resources found in the archive and any notes, such as resources that were missing from the file.
3. Look at the preview. Select a file to see the page as it will be drawn. Scripts are removed and the preview cannot reach the network, so what you see comes only from the file.
4. Set the page. Pick the paper size, orientation, margins, layout width and quality.
5. Convert. Select Convert to PDF. Progress is shown page by page and you can cancel at any time.
6. Download. Save each PDF, or all of them as one ZIP. On a computer the finished PDF is shown under the list.

Choosing paper size, layout width and quality

Layout width has the biggest effect on the result. It is the width of the browser window the page is drawn in. Desktop (1280 px) gives the layout most sites show on a laptop. Mobile (390 px) gives the phone layout: one column and larger text, which reads well on paper. Wide (1600 px) suits dashboards and wide tables. The page is then scaled to fit the printable width, so a wider layout means smaller text on the page.

Paper size. Use A4 or Letter for anything you may print. Legal and A3 give more room per page. "Single long page" puts the whole page on one tall PDF page with no breaks, which is the best choice for reading on a screen. PDF viewers limit a page to 200 inches, so a very long page continues on a second one.

Quality. Standard draws the page at 1x and stores JPEG images. Files are small and fine for reading. High draws at 2x, so small text stays sharp when you zoom or print. Lossless stores PNG images with no compression artifacts and produces the largest files. Use it for screenshots of charts or code.

Margins, background and footer. Margins run from none to 20 mm. Turning background graphics off removes background colors and images to save ink. The footer adds the original URL and "Page X of Y" to every page, and the URL can be a clickable link.

Image-based PDF or selectable text?

The Convert button draws the page onto a canvas and places those images in the PDF. The result looks exactly like the preview in every viewer, including fonts and backgrounds, but the text is part of a picture. You cannot select or search it, and links inside the page are not clickable.

The "Print / Save as PDF" button sends the same cleaned page to your browser's print dialog with your paper size and margins applied. Choose Save as PDF as the destination. The browser writes real text, so you can select, search and copy it, links work, and the file is usually smaller. The layout follows the paper width, and a site's own print styles can hide menus or change fonts. Use Convert when the look matters and Print when the text matters. To read the finished file comfortably, see our guide to the best PDF readers and editors for Mac.

Troubleshooting

• The preview is blank. Some pages build their content with JavaScript after loading. If the page was saved before that finished, the HTML in the archive is nearly empty. Open the original page, wait until it has loaded, scroll to the bottom and save it again.
• Images are missing. The tool reports how many resources were not in the archive. Lazy images that were never scrolled into view are not saved by the browser, so they cannot be restored. Nothing is fetched from the internet to fill the gaps.
• Wrong characters. Older .mht files sometimes declare no character set. The converter tries the declared charset, then a <meta charset> tag, then UTF-8, then windows-1252. If text still looks wrong, download the page as HTML and check its encoding in the Large Text File Viewer.
• A very long page. The page is drawn in bands, so length is not a problem for the browser, but a paged PDF stops at 400 pages. Choose a single long page or a larger paper size, or cut the page into sections first with the HTML Splitter.
• The page scrolls inside a panel. Web apps that keep the page fixed and scroll an inner panel are captured only as far as the visible part. The print route often handles these better.
• Safari and iPhone. Phones and tablets allow smaller canvases than computers, so the converter uses smaller bands there and High quality takes longer. If drawing fails, the tool tells you and you can use the print route, or download the HTML and print it from the Share menu.

Privacy

Everything runs in your browser. The file is read with the File API, parsed in memory, and the PDF is built on your device. There is no upload, no account and no copy kept after you close the tab. Scripts, event handlers and embedded objects are removed from the page before it is shown, and a content security policy blocks every network request from the preview, so a saved page cannot load trackers or contact its original site.

Related tools

"Download as HTML" gives you the page as one self-contained file. Join several of those with the HTML Merger, or edit them with one of the best HTML editors for Linux. For source code, Python code to PDF makes a highlighted PDF from .py files. Documents saved from Word can be combined with Merge Word Files, and saved ebooks open in the EPUB Reader. More converters are listed on the PDF tools and HTML tools pages.