Dynamic HTML.
Browser-based online help that drops straight into your web application. A self-contained set of HTML files with collapsible navigation, full-text search, an index, and related-topics links — no server-side runtime, no portal framework, no extra layers between your documentation and your users.
What Dynamic HTML delivers.
Dynamic HTML is the right output when you want a clean, embeddable web help system without the overhead of a full documentation portal. ePublisher generates standards-compliant XHTML 1.0 with CSS, packaged as a complete folder of HTML topic files, images, and supporting assets that you can drop onto any web server, network share, intranet, or application bundle.
A hierarchical TOC users can expand and collapse to navigate large documentation sets quickly.
A built-in search experience indexed at generation time, with no server-side search service to deploy.
A generated index page wired to the same source markers your authors already use across every output format.
Author-defined cross-references rendered as in-context navigation between related topic pages.
Next/previous links and breadcrumb-style paths so readers can step through a sequence or jump back up the hierarchy.
An optional generation-time stamp that gives readers confidence the help they are looking at matches the product they are running.
Where Dynamic HTML fits.
Dynamic HTML is built for teams who want browser-based help without a portal. It is a particularly strong fit for three deployment patterns:
When your product is itself a web application and the help system needs to live alongside it — in an iframe, a side panel, a modal, or a dedicated /help route — Dynamic HTML drops in cleanly. The output is plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that your application can serve directly from its existing static asset pipeline. There is no separate help portal to deploy, no authentication bridge, and no cross-origin handoff.
Application developers can deep-link directly to a specific Dynamic HTML topic from any UI control. Topics are addressable by URL, so an F1 keypress, a help icon, or a tooltip "Learn more" link can resolve to the exact page the author intended. The same context-sensitive markers your team already uses to wire help into native Windows or Java applications carry over to Dynamic HTML output without rework.
Because the output is a static folder of HTML files, it deploys anywhere a browser can reach the files: an intranet site, a network share, a customer-facing CDN, a release archive shipped with the product, or even a USB drive for offline use. There is no runtime dependency to install on the user's machine beyond a standard web browser.
Dynamic HTML vs. Reverb 2.0.
Dynamic HTML and Reverb 2.0 are both browser-based outputs generated from the same ePublisher source project — but they target different deployment goals.
You need a documentation portal.
Reverb 2.0 is ePublisher's flagship online output: a responsive HTML5 portal with advanced search relevance and filtering, GA4 analytics, AI-assisted features, multi-document collections, and a polished out-of-the-box experience for customer-facing documentation sites.
You need lightweight, embeddable help.
Dynamic HTML is the right starting point when the docs need to live inside something else — your product's UI, a software bundle, an intranet — rather than stand alone as a portal. Smaller footprint, simpler markup, plain HTML and URL integration surface.
Both formats are produced from the same source project. Switching between them, or shipping both alongside one another, does not require duplicating content.
What makes ePublisher's Dynamic HTML stand out.
Single source, every output format
Dynamic HTML is generated from the same ePublisher source project as Reverb 2.0, PDF, and the legacy help formats. Authors work in their preferred document tool — Adobe FrameMaker, Microsoft Word, DITA XML, or Markdown — and ePublisher applies the project's Stationery to produce each target format. Conditional content, variables, indexing, table-of-contents structure, and context-sensitive help all carry across formats consistently. You do not maintain a separate Dynamic HTML source set.
Deep customization through Stationery and SASS
Every visual aspect of Dynamic HTML output is customizable through ePublisher's Stationery system. Page templates, navigation bar position, table-of-contents styling, index styling, fonts, colors, spacing, and per-level CSS rules are all under your control. For teams that want full CSS power, ePublisher supports SASS compilation: enable the Use SASS to compile CSS target setting and your webworks.css is generated from a webworks.scss source you can structure, mix in, and maintain like any modern stylesheet.
Configurable navigation, indexing, and publish-date display
Authors decide whether the navigation bar appears at the top or bottom of the page, what company information sits in the page chrome, and how the table-of-contents and index pages are structured. Generation-time publish-date stamping is a single target setting away, and the date format itself can be overridden through the project's locales.xml file to match regional conventions.
Context-sensitive help, the same way as every other format
The TopicAlias markers your team uses to wire context-sensitive help into HTML Help, Sun JavaHelp, Oracle Help, or WebWorks Help work exactly the same way for Dynamic HTML. Application developers receive a topic-to-URL mapping at generation time and can deep-link from any UI control directly to the right help page — without any additional authoring effort.
Standards-compliant output, no runtime to install
Dynamic HTML output conforms to XHTML 1.0 with CSS1 styling and runs in any modern browser without server-side components, framework runtimes, or end-user installs. The output is portable across operating systems, easy to archive, and straightforward to host wherever your existing web infrastructure already lives.
Authoring once, publishing to any format.
Dynamic HTML is one of several outputs ePublisher generates from the same source project. The same documents that produce Dynamic HTML for an embedded in-product help experience can also produce Reverb 2.0 for a customer-facing portal, PDF for printable user guides, and legacy formats like HTML Help, Oracle Help, Sun JavaHelp, and WebWorks Help for established deployments — all in a single publishing run.
Reaching multiple audiences with consistent content means writing once, branding once, and shipping everywhere your readers are.
Ready to embed Dynamic HTML in your product?
See how Dynamic HTML output fits your application and deployment story. Walk through your use case with us, or start a free 14-day ePublisher trial.