How can I echo the whole content of a .html file in PHP?

You should use readfile():

readfile("/path/to/file");

This will read the file and send it to the browser in one command. This is essentially the same as:

echo file_get_contents("/path/to/file");

except that file_get_contents() may cause the script to crash for large files, while readfile() won't.

Just use:

<?php
    include("/path/to/file.html");
?>

That will echo it as well. This also has the benefit of executing any PHP in the file.

If you need to do anything with the contents, use file_get_contents(),

For example,

<?php
    $pagecontents = file_get_contents("/path/to/file.html");

    echo str_replace("Banana", "Pineapple", $pagecontents);

?>

This doesn't execute code in that file, so be careful if you expect that to work.

I usually use:

include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/path/to/file/as/in/url.html");

as then I can move files without breaking the includes.

If you want to make sure the HTML file doesn't contain any PHP code and will not be executed as PHP, do not use include or require. Simply do:

echo file_get_contents("/path/to/file.html");