Webpages to Go: Offline with Internet Explorer Published in the TechEdge 2000-01 by Wesley A. Fryer www.wesfryer.com   As Internet access becomes faster and more widespread, it is natural to rely on it more than in the past. When teachers use Internet content more frequently in instructional lessons, however, chances increase that during at least one class period, internet access will be interrupted. Suddenly, the fantastic multimedia supplement the teacher had planned to use to interest or impress students is no longer available. Both teachers and students are disappointed, and the teacher may very well chalk up this experience as yet another frustrating, failed attempt to integrate technology in the classroom. Even if internet access is not interrupted entirely, most have experienced slow internet connections. The speed webpages are rendered within a web browser is dependent on a variety of factors. Many of these factors are beyond a teacher's control, but there is hope. By making "offline" copies of webpages on a computer's hard drive (or on a network fileserver) that are accessible anytime (even if internet access is completely down), these problems can be avoided. Offline Web Tools A variety of different software tools which allow users to copy or download "offline" versions of webpages has been available for several years. Commercial products, shareware software, and even freeware programs offer features and benefits as well as limitations when it comes to offline web browsing. The author's 1998 article for the TechEdge, "Offline Browsing = No More Excuses" (www.wtvi.com/teks/article4.html), detailed several of these products. The main limitations of the offline web tools reviewed at that time were: Software was usually complicated and not very "user friendly" Transferring saved webpages from one computer to another (including a fileserver) could be difficult Not all advanced webpage features were supported (frames pages, those incorporating DHTML or cascading stylesheets, etc.) The better software was commercial: it wasn't free The latest version of Internet Explorer (IE) for both Windows and Macintosh computers overcomes all of these limitations. IE 5 is: Intuitive when it comes to saving a webpage offline Capable of saving pages locally or immediately to a network folder Supportive of most advanced HTML features Free While some school districts continue to use Netscape Navigator as their web browser of choice, it appears that the "browser wars" between Microsoft and Netscape are virtually over. Internet research firm Websidestory (www.websidestory.com) found in June 2000 that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is used by 86% of computer users, and just 13.9% use Netscape. Whatever browser an internet user prefers, Internet Explorer remains a free product with robust features on both Windows and Macintosh computers and deserves consideration when searching for inexpensive (or free) and intuitive offline web tools. Offline Webpage Saving in Windows Internet Explorer 5 and 5.5 for Windows both include enhanced capabilities for saving webpages offline. The steps to do this are: Open the webpage you want to save locally. Let the page completely load. From the FILE menu, choose SAVE AS. Create and name a new folder to save the webpage into, and open the folder. At the bottom of the file saving dialog window, make sure "Web Page, complete" is selected. Rename the file as desired. The file extension ".htm" will be added automatically, so the computer will know that when the file is double clicked, it should be opened in the default web browser. Click SAVE to save the webpage. To save additional webpages, repeat these steps and use a different filename. The new webpage can be saved in the same folder if desired. IE 5 for Windows saves the webpage as a HTML document, and creates a new folder (within the folder previously created) for all the images included in the page. This file saving format is advantageous, because these files (the entire folder containing both the HTML file and the images) can be transferred to a network fileserver / intranet for access by Macintosh as well as Windows web browsers. To open a saved webpage, double click the file name that was used when saving it in Internet Explorer. If the page has been saved on the network, a link on an intranet homepage to the saved page may be created, so others can more easily directly link to the page. In the web browser, when the page is displayed, its local path (like F:/sharedfiles/page.htm) will be displayed, indicating the content is being accessed locally rather than from the "live" internet (with a http:// address). Offline Webpage Saving on a Macintosh Internet Explorer 5 for Macintosh also includes enhanced offline webpage saving features, which have unique benefits as well as some limitations when compared to its Windows counterpart. The main differences are: IE 5 for Macintosh lets users specify how many "levels deep" a website should be copied offline. This allows many pages to be copied simultaneously (even an entire website.) Webpages saved from IE 5 on a Macintosh are saved as a single file, which is only readable on Macintosh computers. Unlike websites saved offline in IE 5 for Windows, which include an html page and separate image files (as HTML pages do on a webserver), this "single file format" on a Macintosh prohibits the saved webpages from being viewed on Windows computers. These single files are slightly easier to copy to other computers or a network folder, however. My conclusions concerning these differences are: To save offline copies of websites for a cross-platform (Mac / Windows) environment, use a Windows computer and IE 5 to save the webpages to the fileserver. Each webpage must be saved separately. To make an offline copy of multiple pages on the same website, using a Macintosh both to copy the files and present them to students, use IE 5 for Mac. The steps to make offline copies of webpages in IE 5 for Macintosh are: Open the webpage to save locally. Let the page completely load. From the FILE menu, choose SAVE AS. Create and name a new folder to save the webpage into, and open the folder. At the bottom of the file saving window, make sure WEB ARCHIVE is selected. Click the OPTIONS button and choose the features desired. These can include downloading multimedia elements in addition to images, such as sounds and movies. You can also choose to DOWNLOAD LINKS and select the number of "Levels deep" to copy. Beware that file size and download time will increase as more options are selected. It is generally a good idea to "Skip links to other sites," as this option is checked by default. Click OK to close the OPTIONS window. Click SAVE to start the webpage copying process. A progress window will be displayed showing which files remain to be downloaded. To open the saved webpage, double click the file name used when saving the it in Internet Explorer. If "Download links" was used, the address of a webpage saved offline with Internet Explorer will look (at the top of the browser window on the address line) as if the website is "live" on the internet: it will remain http://www.mysite.com. However, in the lower left corner of the browser window, a globe with a red line will be displayed, indicating the page is not "live" but rather "offline." This is an advantage, since students creating a bibliography with this offline website can still directly copy the internet address from the browser, just as they would if the website were "live" on the web. Go Offline! Making offline copies of webpages remains a somewhat time consuming endeavor, but the complexity and level of know-how required to do it have been substantially reduced by the new features of Internet Explorer. If a lesson is taught several times during the day and uses the same webpages, why not make offline copies of them? By doing so: the webpages will display faster in the web browser access to these webpages will be guaranteed and not subject to unpredictable interruptions in internet access the webpage content can still be displayed, even if the original webpage on the internet is changed or removed The Educational Fair Use provisions of US Copyright law provide educators with permission to use electronic resources under certain limitations (including portion and time), but do not constitute a "blank check" to copy an internet website and use it indefinitely for any purpose. Review the guidelines from the Consortium of College and University Media Centers on acceptable educational uses of multimedia materials online (www.adec.edu/admin/papers/fair10-17.html) and become familiar with the limitations they suggest. Wesley Fryer is a computer teacher and technology facilitator in Lubbock ISD. Teachers can sign up for his free, twice monthly educational technology updates at http://www.wtvi.com/teks. 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