How To Convert Webpage to PDF: 12 Best Tools

Converting a webpage to PDF can be useful for many reasons. You may want to save a copy of a page for offline viewing, archive web content, or share information with others in a universal file format.

PDFs maintain the original formatting of a page and can be viewed on any device. They also make it easy to print webpages.

Luckily, there are many great tools available to quickly and easily convert webpages to PDF. In this guide, we‘ll overview 12 of the top options.

Overview of PDF Format

Before jumping into the conversion tools, let‘s briefly go over what exactly PDF files are and why you may want to use them.

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It was created in the early 1990s by Adobe as a way to share documents with a consistent appearance across platforms.

Some key advantages of PDFs include:

Maintains original formatting – PDFs look exactly like the original document or webpage, including images, fonts, colors, and layout.
Viewable on any device – PDFs can be opened on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and any other operating system. You don‘t have to worry about compatibility issues.
Compact file size – PDFs are typically smaller in size than the original file while preserving quality. This makes them easy to email and share.
Security options – Password protection, digital signatures, and other security features can be applied to PDFs.
Universal format – PDF has become the standard file format for sharing documents and information. Virtually any application can open PDFs.
Print-ready – PDFs preserve the pagination and formatting of documents so that they print correctly.
Accessible – PDF files work well with screen readers for the visually impaired.

So in summary, converting a webpage to PDF allows you to capture an exact snapshot of that page in a compact, universal file format suitable for sharing, printing, and archiving.

Next let‘s look at 12 excellent tools to easily convert webpages to PDF.

1. PrintFriendly

PrintFriendly is one of the most popular online PDF converters. It‘s fast, easy to use, and completely free.

To convert a webpage to PDF with PrintFriendly:

Go to www.printfriendly.com and enter the URL of the webpage you want to convert.
Click "Print" and a PDF will automatically be generated.
The PDF will open in a new tab. Click the download icon to save it to your computer.

That‘s all there is to it! PrintFriendly scrapes the webpage and converts the HTML and images into a PDF file.

You can also use the PrintFriendly browser extension to quickly convert any webpage with one click. Just right-click the extension icon in your browser and select "Print as PDF".

PrintFriendly has some handy customization options too. You can choose the paper size, orientation, margins, and whether to print background colors and images. An outline or table of contents can be added as well.

The free service allows 50 page conversions per month. For unlimited use, PrintFriendly Premium starts at $5 per month.

2. SmallPDF

SmallPDF is another superb online PDF converter. It works great for single webpages or even entire websites.

To use SmallPDF:

Go to the HTML to PDF converter page.
Enter a webpage URL or upload an HTML file.
Click "Convert to PDF".
Once processed, you can preview, download, or share the resulting PDF.

SmallPDF has a couple options you can tweak, like page size and whether to include background graphics.

The free plan permits 10 conversions per hour. SmallPDF also offers a premium option starting at $7 per month for advanced features and priority support.

3. PDFmyURL

PDFmyURL focuses specifically on converting webpages to PDF. Just enter a URL and PDFmyURL generates a PDF preview right in your browser.

PDFmyURL has a couple unique options:

Create a multipage PDF from an entire website by entering the root domain, like example.com.
Convert HTML files stored locally on your computer by uploading them.

The developer plan allows unlimited conversions for $9 per month. There is also a free option limited to 10 conversions per day.

4. ConvertHTMLtoPDF

ConvertHTMLtoPDF deserves a mention for being one of the fastest and simplest HTML to PDF converters available.

To use it:

Go to converthtmltopdf.com.
Enter a webpage URL.
Click "Convert" and wait a few seconds.
Your PDF will open in a new browser tab, ready for download.

ConvertHTMLtoPDF has a clean interface with no extra options or clutter. The focus is purely on fast conversions.

The free plan permits unlimited conversions but leaves a tiny watermark. For $9 per month you can get unlimited PDFs without any branding.

5. PDFBear

PDFBear provides a slick HTML to PDF converter packed with advanced features.

After entering a webpage URL, you can customize:

Page size
Margins
Header and footer content
Whether to include background graphics
Output image quality

PDFBear also has unique capabilities like:

Scheduling conversions to process later
Adding a table of contents for navigation
Support for JavaScript and single page apps
Converting HTML to Excel, Word, JPG, and other formats

Pricing starts at $4.99 per month for the Starter plan. Unlimited commercial use requires the $9.99 per month Business plan.

6. Chrome Extension

If you use Google Chrome, the Chrome IG: HTML/Webpage to PDF extension provides an incredibly easy way to convert the page you‘re currently viewing into a PDF.

After installing the extension:

Navigate to the webpage you want to convert.
Click the extension icon in your toolbar.
The page will immediately be converted and downloaded as a PDF file.

No need to copy and paste URLs anywhere. Just one click when viewing the page.

This Chrome extension is completely free. The PDFs contain a tiny watermark but conversion is unlimited.

7. Vue.js

Vue.js is an open source JavaScript framework. It provides a simple API for converting HTML to PDF called vue-html2pdf.

To use it:

import Vue from ‘vue‘
import VueHtml2pdf from ‘vue-html2pdf‘

Vue.use(VueHtml2pdf)

VueHtml2pdf.generatePdf(``) 
  .then(pdf => {
    // PDF generated
  })

You can pass in raw HTML strings, Vue components, or webpage URLs to be converted.

This allows you to programmatically generate PDFs from webpages right within your JavaScript app or website.

8. wkhtmltopdf

wkhtmltopdf is an open source command line tool for converting HTML to PDF. It utilizes WebKit rendering engine to capture web content.

To install on Linux:

sudo apt install wkhtmltopdf

Once setup, use:

wkhtmltopdf example.com example.pdf

This will convert the webpage to a PDF file.

You can also call it from within Python, Node.js, PHP, and other languages to automate PDF generation.

Since it runs locally, wkhtmltopdf can convert dynamic websites requiring user interaction like JavaScript. The downside is having to install it on each computer.

9. Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node.js library developed by Google for controlling headless Chrome.

It provides an API for generating PDFs from webpages:

const puppeteer = require(‘puppeteer‘);

(async () => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto(‘https://example.com‘, {waitUntil: ‘networkidle0‘});
  await page.pdf({path: ‘example.pdf‘});

  await browser.close();
})();

As you can see, Puppeteer launches a hidden Chromium instance and programmatically navigates to a webpage before saving as PDF.

This allows PDF conversion as part of backend Node.js processes. The PDF can then be displayed in the browser or attached to emails.

10. Selenium with Python

Selenium is a popular browser automation framework. Combined with Python, it can be used to convert webpages to PDF.

First install Selenium and PDF libraries:

pip install selenium
pip install xhtml2pdf

Then run:

from selenium import webdriver
import lxml.html
import pdfkit

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() 
options.add_argument(‘--headless‘)
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)

driver.get("https://example.com")
content = driver.page_source

pdf = pdfkit.from_string(content, False)
pdf.to_file("example.pdf")

This launches Chrome in headless mode, loads a webpage, grabs the HTML content, and converts it to PDF using pdfkit.

The major advantage over API services is this works for any interactive page requiring JavaScript execution. The downside is several dependencies to install and configure.

11. Bash Script

For Linux/macOS users, this simple Bash script can convert URLs to PDF:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 <URL>"
  exit 1
fi

url=$1
filename="${url##*/}.pdf"

wkhtmltopdf $url $filename

To use it:

./html-to-pdf.sh https://example.com

This will save the PDF to a file like example.com.pdf.

The script depends on wkhtmltopdf being installed. Additional arguments could be passed for customization.

For Windows, a similar script can be created using PowerShell or Batch. This gives you a command line tool to automate PDF conversions.

12. Online Converter APIs

Several online conversion services provide developer APIs, allowing you to convert webpages to PDFs from within your own apps.

For example:

These typically involve signing up for a developer account, then calling a REST API or SDK with a URL to get back the converted PDF content.

Pricing varies but often starts free for low usage then paid monthly plans. This can be useful if you need to reliably generate PDFs from web content.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many great options for converting webpages to PDF documents.

The easiest free solutions are browser extensions and simple online tools like PrintFriendly and PDFmyURL. These allow quick one-off conversions with minimal setup.

For more advanced use cases, SaaS APIs, command line utilities like wkhtmltopdf, and browser automation frameworks provide ways to integrate webpage to PDF conversion into your own apps and scripts.

Factors to consider when choosing a tool include:

Pricing – Free for personal use vs paid plans for commercial use
Speed – How fast it generates PDFs
Fidelity – Accuracy retaining original formatting styles
Customization – Options like headers/footers, table of contents
Security – Encryption, watermarks, data privacy
Support – Help docs, tutorials, customer service
Reliability – Uptime and stability

So try a few options to see which you like best. Converting webpages to PDF can be a huge productivity boon when you need to save content for offline access, share information via digital documents, archive webpages, and more.

Overview of PDF Format

1. PrintFriendly

2. SmallPDF

3. PDFmyURL

4. ConvertHTMLtoPDF

5. PDFBear

6. Chrome Extension

7. Vue.js

8. wkhtmltopdf

9. Puppeteer

10. Selenium with Python

11. Bash Script

12. Online Converter APIs

Conclusion

Related