In reply to chromatophoria (msg # 1):
The Archive function is discussed in the Help System here:
/help/?t=help&page=f_reading
Note that archiving will make
all private lines public in the archived copy.
No doubt you have seen the D/L link in your games (usually in the upper right-hand corner underneath Main Menu and to the right of Delete Thread.
This link will download the entire contents of a thread, displaying it in the browser for copy/paste/view operations. There are certain options to be set when doing this which are fairly easy to figure out.
Both routes are "per thread". So far as I know, neither an "archive all" nor a "download all" function exists.