Save webpages as pdfs, not as browser pages- need offline.

cl_heck
Hi,

Is there a way to create an option where the webpage snapshots are saved as pdfs instead of webpages? This would help when I am offline or need to work using my pdf app and word, I don't have space to also open a browser.

Also, I would like a function that grabbed online pdfs when they are in the browser viewer that saved both the pdf and the website, not just the website. This way I can avoid saving the pdf to a folder and then uploading to zotero.
  • adamsmith
    No for the first one, though you can use a 3rd party tool to convert to and save as pdf.

    For the second, for sites supported by Zotero it should already attach the PDF when you save. Otherwise, this works in Firefox with Standalone closed (use the PDF download button), but I don't see how to do this reasonably in other browsers, sorry.
  • Driftless
    I'm experimenting using the cross-platform wkhtmltopdf* inside the zotero directory -- I can recursively search, finding all .html files, and convert them to PDF. However, then I'm stuck.

    Is there any way to force Zotero to find pdf files in a storage directory and attach it to the correct item?

    As a further vote for making a "Download webpage to Zotero as PDF" option:
    1) standard annotation work flow with other documents
    2) Size: PDF versions (I'm finding) are about 1/4 the size of html versions on the disk

    *http://wkhtmltopdf.org/
  • Driftless
    FYI: As a current workflow, using Zotfile extension, I do this:

    1) Turn off "include snapshot" in zotero settings
    2) Add a "custom source folder for attaching new files" in zotfile settings
    3) Click the cite webpage button in zotero
    4) Save the webpage as PDF (in the zotfile directory)
    5) Find the newly created item, right click and choose the Zotfile->Attach New File option (toward the bottom of the popup).

    A bit cumbersome, but only because we are trained to believe we live in a one-click world by the awesome developers at Zotero who have already saved us collective centuries of time.
  • jessriedel
    I'd like to reiterate Driftless's last comment: I would love an option in Zotero to make the default behavior saving webpages as PDFs rather than (or in addition to) HTML, but this is not the highest priority and I'm already grateful for the useful tools we have. Thanks!
  • bwiernik
    Note that the saved HTML snapshots are available offline. They are local just the same way that PDFs are. I’d recommend using HTML—the web page is designed for layout in HTML, and automatic PDF conversion is often going to be very poor layout.
  • dstillman
    @jessriedel: See my explanation of this in another thread:

    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/365849/#Comment_365849

    PDF just isn't a good format to use to save webpages.
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