Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.os.linux.misc > #36213

Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)?

Show all headers | View raw

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 24/11/2022 13:37, Robert Heller wrote:
>> At Thu, 24 Nov 2022 21:07:53 +0800 P-P-Pete <nerdy@boffin.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>>
>>> Need to convert current bank balances to pdf.
>>> The banks only issue a statement every 1 or 2 months. They allow one
>>> to save latest history as Excel, text, MYOB etc, but not pdf. Can obtain
>>> latest balances via internet banking pages, but when print them to pdf,
>>> they are shit-house. Formatting is way out and parts are truncated. Get
>>> the same result in Firefox or Chromium. I presume it depends on some
>>> rendering core in the linux distro? I am using Debian.
>> 
>> No, more likely really awful webpage code. The banking webpages are probably
>> loaded with "clever" JavaScript & css and "lack" proper style sheets for print
>> media. There is not much you can do about that.  Either the bank's IT dept is
>> totally clueless or (likely) they don't really want you to *print* their
>> webpages and so have deliberately coded the webpages to be "unprintable".
>> Both Firefox and Chromium generally do a good job of rendering webpages as
>> PDF, but if the webpages are either badly crafted or specificly designed to be
>> "unprintable", there is not much Firefox or Chromium can do.
>> 
> Amen to all that, however there remains one other option and that is to 
> use a screen snapshot and import that into e.g. Gimp and save as a PDF 
> (image)

If you right-click on a page in Firefox, it has its own built-in
webpage screenshot function too. I'm using that more and more as
these horrible Javascript-formatted websites spread ever wider.

Sometimes simply selecting all text on a page and copy/pasting it
into a text editor actually gives you something either workably
formatted, or consistent enough that you can write a simple
script to reformat it. Although at least in this case there are
some export options available already.

-- 
__          __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Back to comp.os.linux.misc | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? P-P-Pete <nerdy@boffin.edu> - 2022-11-24 21:07 +0800
  Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2022-11-24 13:16 +0000
    Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2022-11-24 14:16 +0000
  Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> - 2022-11-24 13:37 +0000
    Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2022-11-24 14:04 +0000
      Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2022-11-25 08:10 +1000
  Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2022-11-24 15:16 +0100
  Re: printing a webpage to pdf (that isn't crap)? Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2022-11-24 22:59 -0500

csiph-web