If you want to save a website as a PDF, there are many different free-of-charge solutions at your disposal. In addition to different programs and web browser add-ons, there are also many web apps on offer that can turn in­di­vid­ual web pages into a PDF. Most of the time, however, the results stemming from these apps are in­ad­e­quate for many users: for example, perhaps some of the websites’ com­po­nents weren’t able to be properly saved, or the for­mat­ting or quality of the images included in the document were no­tice­ably poor. And it’s precisely this reason that we’ve re­searched some of the best ap­pli­ca­tions for con­vert­ing websites into Portable Document Format (PDF).

What’s the point of saving a website as a PDF?

There are some sit­u­a­tions where con­vert­ing from HTML to PDF may be useful: for example, if you’d like to save an article, route de­scrip­tion, or other content in order to be able to access it later without an internet con­nec­tion. Portable Document Formats (PDFs) are among the most commonly used file formats out there and can be used across different platforms. As a result, PDFs can be called up on virtually any computer and operating system — the document can be easily and quickly trans­ferred via a removable storage device (USB stick, memory card, etc.), online storage spaces, or an e-mail on another computer. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly useful in cases where users wish to print a document but don’t have a printer attached to the computer they’re currently working on.

What’s more, saving websites as PDFs is useful when archiving online content. But what ad­van­tages do special programs offer when it comes to con­vert­ing a website’s content into a PDF? After all, pushing [Ctrl] + [S] or right clicking your mouse and selecting ‘save page’ also has a similar effect.; screen­shots are also often enough to get the job done.

But there are indeed good reasons to take advantage of some of the software options out there: unlike the browser’s simple ‘save page’ function, these tools are able to better display the details of a given page’s layout. A further advantage can also be observed when taking a look at the ‘save page’ function: this browser command saves an HTML file of the called up page as well as many other separate files of the cor­re­spond­ing page elements. PDF converter programs on the other hand provide their users with just one single PDF file. And unlike screen­shots, the document always contains the complete website.

How to convert HTML into PDF

Even this program, which displays websites in separate sections, doesn’t always produce a one-to-one pre­sen­ta­tion of the website you aim to copy. The quality of the con­ver­sion depends first and foremost on the re­spec­tive webpage’s content. More complex internet sites and dynamic content sometimes lack certain com­po­nents; in other cases, a site’s for­mat­ting isn’t correctly taken on. Even the ap­pli­ca­tions in­tro­duced in this text are not able to guarantee that web content will be fully trans­ferred into a PDF file true to the original content’s form. Despite these short­com­ings, these are the best available free-of-charge tools for con­vert­ing HTML to PDF.

Saving a website as a PDF with locally installed con­ver­sion software

  • Nitro PDF Reader: in addition to opening and editing PDFs, Nitro PDF Reader enables users to convert numerous file formats into a PDF file. When it comes to con­vert­ing a website, the following steps are generally taken: after in­stalling the program, open the print menu in your browser in order to print the displayed page (either via the browser menu or via the key command [Ctrl] + [P]). After selecting the Nitro PDF reader and clicking ‘Print’, the program transfers all of the page’s web content into a PDF.

  • PDFCre­ator: the PDFCre­ator functions in a very similar way to that of the Nitro PDF Reader: this tool also saves content via the browser’s print function. In addition to PDFs, other ad­di­tion­al file formats are also supported (PNG, JPG, etc.).

  • 7-PDF Website Converter: in order to save a website with the 7-PDF Converter, just add the URL into the program’s text field. Before the con­ver­sion is started, users are able to make changes to the settings: for example the format and the ori­en­ta­tion (portrait or landscape) can be de­ter­mined; users can also opt to keep the links from the website in the PDF file.

Saving a website as a PDF with your browser

  • Save as PDF: this add-on is available for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome and enables website-to-PDF con­ver­sion through both browsers. Just search in Chrome’s or Firefox’s add-on menu for the option ‘Save as PDF’: after in­stalling the add-on, users are able to save the called up website as a PDF in just one easy click.

  • Awesome Screen­shot: this tool runs on many browsers (Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera, Mozilla Firefox) and in addition to HTML-to-PDF con­ver­sion, also offers some ad­di­tion­al features: this allows users to add comments or other labels in the created document.

  • Firefox for Android: this allows users to create PDF files of the displayed site via smart­phones or tablets (‘Menu’à ‘Page’ ‘Save as PDF’).

  • Safari iOS: this allows users to create a PDF file or an internet site via the browser menu (‘Share’ à ‘Save PDF in iBooks’).

Saving a website as a PDF via a web app

  • Free HTML to PDF converter by Win­no­v­a­tive Software: the online-PDF converter by Win­no­v­a­tive software is easy to use and also delivers great results. With this app, you just need to enter the website’s URL and answer the CAPTCHA request.

  • Online2pdf.com: the website online2pdf.com is somewhat more com­pli­cat­ed to use. Through your browser, your website first needs to be saved in the (O)XPS format (this is all explained here on the provider’s website and then uploaded to the web app and converted there.

  • Htm2pdf.co.uk: with this web app, websites can be saved quickly and easily as PDFs. You’ll receive a download link shortly after adding the URL and clicking on ‘Convert!’. However, the document does indicate that it was created with htm2pdf.co.uk.
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