Grant PDF Print Power to Your Website Visitors

There might be several reasons why a reader would want to be able to convert a web page to PDF, such as: to share with a non-online friend, to be able to email it or to put it into a PDF device to read later; while still retaining the original form of the page. That’s why web to PDF conversion tools are gaining popularity.

But if we look it from the perspective of the site owner, giving the readers the ability to ‘PDF-print’ your pages will improve your site likeability by several points, and increase the site’s exposure to new readers.

We have discussed the RSS to PDF option using Feedbooks, but the service is limited to RSS feeds and feeds are sometimes only a fraction of the full articles. Moreover with this option, there’s nothing you can do but get ALL the feeds.

For website owners who still don’t offer an RSS option on their site (if any still exists today!) and/or wants to give their readers more freedom to PDF-print individual articles directly from the webpage, you can use the script from Web2PDF Online.

Here’s how:

1. Getting the code for ‘Save as PDF’

• Register at the Web2PDF Online Site
• Set the conversion options such as paper orientation and margin (in inches)
• Click the “Generate The Javascript” button.
• Copy the script provided in the next window

2. Using the code

Actually, all you have to do is paste the code into the HTML of the page where you want the “Save as PDF” button to appear. This could be a lot of work for those who want to put the button on all of their pages.

But Wordpress users can save time by using the code as a widget.

• From the admin panel, go to Design –> Widgets
• Find the Text widget on the left side of the Widget’s page and click “Add”
• The Text widget will appear on the right side of the page, below other widgets which already been activated before. Click “Edit”
• Give a title to this widget (or not), then paste the Javascript code on the body of the text.



• Click “Change” and then “Save Changes”
• You can drag and drop to these widgets to rearrange the order. But don’t forget to click “Save Changes” again afterwards.

From here on, your readers are able to print your web page(s) to PDF. Everytime they click the button, the page will be converted to PDF and a new window will appear showing a download link to the PDF file.

Do you know any other ways to offer your blog readers PDF functionality? Let us know what tools you offer in the comments.

(By) Jeffry Thurana is a blogaholic who has just started his own self-improvement journal “Supersubconscious” and manages an Indonesian tech blog “InterNeTips“. He actually thinks there are 30 hours everyday.