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Save web pages as PDF with Firefox 3

October 18th, 2007

It’s not clear at this point whether Firefox 3 will include an option to save web pages as PDF files. It is in the PRD (product requirement document) but it could get cut for time constraint reasons.

Fortunately, the backend necessary to make this happen is already in place and Firefox 3 will be able to save pages as PDF. It’s just that the necessary user interface may not be there.

Stuart Parmenter, the Firefox developer who made it possible has released printpdf, an extension that adds a Print to PDF… option to the Tools menu.

Select it, set a name and location for the PDF to be saved and Firefox will print the current web page as a PDF file.

It’s not perfect though. I made a couple of tests and found that the generated PDFs are noticeably larger (3x - 4x) than those produced with PDF Creator, an open source PDF printing utility for Windows. Printing isn’t perfect either as some images where left out in one of my tests.

But this is a first version and it seems that at least it will be available as an extension if the necessary UI doesn’t make it to Firefox 3 final.

Get printpdf from Mozilla’s Bugzilla. Remember you will need a recent Firefox 3 nightly to try it as well.

Via Mozillalinks.org