HTMLRadar · Guide
Updating a document after you have sent it.
Updated September 2026
Replace the file on the document page and every link you have already sent serves the new contents the next time it is opened. The address stays the same, the password, e-mail gate, expiry date and allow-list on each link stay the same, and the reading you have already collected stays where it is. Nobody has to be sent a second link, and nobody has to be told to ignore the first one.
This is the one thing an HTML document can do that a PDF in somebody’s inbox cannot. Once an attachment has gone out, the only fix is a second e-mail, and a second e-mail is an admission. A tracked link is an address you still control, so the fix is silent: you change what is behind it.
Three ways to do it
All three do exactly the same thing. They differ only in where you are standing when you decide to fix something.
In the dashboard
Open the document and press Replace HTML. A file picker opens straight away; choose the corrected file and it uploads. It accepts .html and .htm files up to 30 MB. Re-selecting a file with the same name as last time works — a common way to lose an afternoon in other tools.
From Claude, or any assistant on the connector
Ask it to update the document and it calls the replace_document tool with the new markup. This is the loop the connector exists for: read who stopped where, rewrite that part, put it behind the same links. The connector page lists all seven tools.
Over the API
POST /api/v1/documents/{id}/replace with the full markup in an html field. It answers with the new version number and links_unchanged: true. The API reference has the rest.
What changes, and what does not
| After a replace | What happens |
|---|---|
| The link address | Unchanged. Every slug you have sent stays exactly as it was, including a name you chose yourself and a custom domain if you use one. |
| Link settings | Unchanged. Password, e-mail gate, expiry date, allow-list, recipient label and download permission are properties of the link, and replacing does not touch them. |
| When the reader sees it | On their next open. A page already open in somebody’s browser keeps showing what it loaded until they reload it. |
| Reading already recorded | Kept, in full. Nothing is deleted, and each session stores the version number the reader actually saw. |
| The version number | Goes up by one, and a row is added to the version history: number, size, time, who did it, and the filename when it came through the browser. |
| The old file | Left in storage but no longer served. There is no route that serves a previous version to anybody. |
| Attachments on the document | Untouched. Replacing swaps the HTML page, not the files riding along with it. |
What happens to the section names
This is the part worth understanding before you rewrite a heading, because it is the one place a replace can make an old reading report look different.
HTMLRadar measures reading against the headings in your page, and the document-level chart adds up that time by the heading’s text, not by its position in the page or by any identifier in the markup. So a section that keeps its heading across versions stays one line in the chart, and the time readers of version one and version four spent on it accumulates together. That is what you want: “Spend & results” should be one row whether it was the third section in March or the second in April.
Rename a heading and you get a second line instead. The old name keeps the time it already had and the new name starts at zero, because nothing in the page tells us the two are the same section. Sections with no heading at all fall back to their identifier in the markup, which can change between exports, so give the parts of a document you care about real headings and leave them alone.
The limits, stated plainly
- There is no editor. HTMLRadar does not let you change words inside the browser. You edit the page wherever you wrote it and upload the whole file again.
- It is the whole document, every time. There is no partial update. The markup you supply becomes the document.
- History is a record, not a rollback. Every version is listed, and no version can be restored with a click. Going back means uploading the earlier file again as a new version, so keep it.
- Uploaded documents only. A document you added by pasting a URL you host has nothing to replace; it changes when you change the page at that address.
- Size. 30 MB through the dashboard, 5 MB through the API and the connector, and HTML only in all three.
- Two replaces at once. Through the API or the connector, if a second replace lands while the first is still in flight, one of them wins and the other is told it lost rather than quietly overwriting the winner.
- Replacing is screened like any upload. Swapping new contents behind a link people already trust is exactly the move the phishing screen exists for, so the new file is checked the same way the first one was.
- It does not un-read what was already read. Anybody who opened the link before you fixed it saw the old version. The dashboard records when each person opened, so you can see who read it before the change.
When to replace, and when to send a new link
Replace when it is the same document: a typo, a wrong number, a section rewritten because the reading report showed four people stopping at it, next month’s edition of a report the same client receives every month. The client keeps one address all year and you keep one running record of their reading.
Create a new document instead when it is a different document that happens to look similar — a proposal for another client, a deck for another round. Reading data is attached to the document, and two unrelated pieces of work sharing one record make both harder to read.
Common questions
- Can I update a document after I have already sent the link?
- Yes. Replace the file on the document page in HTMLRadar and every link you have already sent serves the new contents the next time it is opened. The address does not change, the password, e-mail gate, expiry date and allow-list on each link do not change, and you do not have to send anybody a second link.
- Does replacing a document break the link I already sent?
- No. Replacing changes what the document points at; it does not touch the links. Each link keeps its slug, its recipient label and every setting it had, and the reading history recorded against it stays where it is. The HTTP API even says so in its reply, which carries links_unchanged: true.
- What happens to the reading data I already collected?
- It stays, all of it. Nothing is deleted when you replace a document, and every reading session records which version of the document that reader actually saw, so a session from before the change is still attributable to the version that was live at the time.
- Does HTMLRadar keep old versions of a document?
- It keeps a record of them. Every replace appends a row to the document version history with the version number, the file size, the time, and the filename when the file came through the browser. The "v" chip on the document page opens that list, with the version being served now marked Current. There is no button that restores an earlier version, so if you may want to go back, keep the earlier file yourself.
- Can I edit the text of a document inside HTMLRadar?
- No. HTMLRadar has no editor. You change the HTML wherever you wrote it — your editor, Claude, whatever produced the page — and upload the new file to replace the old one. What HTMLRadar guarantees is that the swap is invisible to the links you have already sent.
- Can I replace a document I shared as a URL rather than a file?
- No, and there would be nothing to replace. A document added by pasting a URL you host is served from your address, so it updates when you update the page at that address. Replacing is for documents whose HTML file HTMLRadar is storing.
First 2 tracked links free. No credit card. Replacing a document is on the free plan too.