PDF version of your website?

[Mountain Goat]

I was using one of the many online conversion services today for Word to PDF, and this one was useful:

PDFOnline

with no silly ads or watermarks.

What was more interesting was their other online gadget, which converts your webpages to PDFs and can be offered to your site visitors via a button:

Web2pdf

It's in Beta, and I haven't had time to play around with it. Another of those things you didn't know you were missing?

MG

[Alan Knighting]

MG,

That looks like a really useful tool.

What attracts me to is not so much converting web sites to PDF’s and giving links to them (for me, a web site address is link enough).

It’s the ability to create PDF’s out of Word and Publisher documents, etc. and giving a link to each one. I think that’s a whole lot better than sending long documents as e-mail attachments.

Alan

[Garri]

Why not create a css file specifically for the print version of your website?

Here's some leads on the subject:

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/2 ... usability/
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/css ... her_media/
http://themeplayground.com/creating-a-p ... ss-website

I'm thinking you could create a page on your site/blog called 'brochure'. This would basically contain all the essential info in a takeaway format. Then create a css print style for this page/section (linked to it in your header).

The print style would basically remove all the navigational elements and other extraneous stuff.

The neat thing about this approach, especially if using a blog, is the ease of which you can simultaneously update the page both publicly and the print version, rather than pfaffing around with proprietary formats and convoluted processes.

If you do use PDFs be sure to mark them as such. There's nothing more annoying than clicking on a link, which you are expecting to take you to a web page, but instead having a PDF downloaded to your desktop.

It's all about user expectation, which Roger Johansson (the first of the links above) discusses in his article.

[Normandy Cow]

Can this be used to create a PDF or printable version of a wordpress blog?
A few months ago I tried to print off my blog, with no success. Any advice?

[Garri]

Any advice?

Create a special css file for printing and link to it in your header under your regular @import style.css, then place a 'print' button or link on your site that calls this style.

The articles I dug up provide a good primer for the concept and a search on WordPress is sure to yield a step by step guide.

[Normandy Cow]

Thanks Garri, but I haven't a clue what you mean!! Sorry.

I do know what CSS is, but a few years out of the IT industry and I am now floundering.

If it's not something I can do easily, then I guess I'll just have to do without it...

Thanks anyway!

[Mountain Goat]

NC, I think the answer is a definite yes. It might be useful for the odd punter who doesn't do the 'net, as it drives me around the bend having to go back to finding a stamp, paper and all that stuff.

I'm still mulling over Garri's post(s).

MG

[Alan Knighting]

Why not create a css file specifically for the print version of your website?

Why complicate things? Why not start off with the assumption that the user knows nothing and simply want to produce a printable version of something, a printable version available on the web? Is PDFOnline not an easy way of doing that?

Alan

[Normandy Cow]

Actually, I don't want it to be available online (although there's no reason why it shouldn't be).

No, I want to print off a version of my blog and leave it in the guest information folder at the house, as it has a lot of useful information that may be of interest to the people who are already there on holiday...

[enid]

I really don't want to start the mac V Pc again - no honestly!! - but on the Mac you can save docs as PDF toute suite I send all my docs to clients in PDF so for PC users I think this is great.

[Garri]

Why not create a css file specifically for the print version of your website?

Why complicate things? Why not start off with the assumption that the user knows nothing and simply want to produce a printable version of something, a printable version available on the web? Is PDFOnline not an easy way of doing that?

Alan

How is using css to style your print output complicated? I made the assumption that the user (being the site owner in this context) has a website, and that website already, most likely, has a css file for the screen output so it wouldn't take much apart from some planning to create a print version.

If you're using Word (or whatever) for your brochure you have to update that information, turn it into a PDF and link to it on your website. Any changes you make to your PDF file need to be made on your site too, so that publicly your info is all up to date.

That's an inefficient method if you ask me and one fraught with potential problems i.e. forgetting to update one or the other and having to duplicate the process.

The PDF Online thingy probably does the job but adds an extra layer to the process. They also state this on their website:

Web2PDF Online is a free service for your websites that allows your visitors to quickly save useful information in your blogs and websites to PDF files.

My question, as a visitor, is why would I want to do that?

[Alan Knighting]

Gari,

Sorry but I am looking at the possibilities of PDFOnline from a much wider perspective than are you. I think it offers much more than just making a web site available as a printable version. Anyone using either a PC or a Mac can make a PDF version of just about anything but that not the point. The point is, how does one make the PDF version of anything easily available to the world at large?

I agree with you on the subject of making a web site availed in a printable version, but I do question you when you say:-

How is using css to style your print output complicated?

I think you assume that the user has even heard of ccs in the first place and I don’t think that's necessarily the case.

If you're using Word (or whatever) for your brochure you have to update that information, turn it into a PDF and link to it on your website. Any changes you make to your PDF file need to be made on your site too, so that publicly your info is all up to date.

Whatever tools are being used one should always publish the latest version and that means one has to do regular updates. One of the fundamental points about PDFOnline is that you don’t have to link anything to your website, you just give a web address for it.

The PDFOnline thingy probably does the job but adds an extra layer to the process.

No, I don’t think so. I think it is just a different way of publishing things which are up to date, all in one place. Whether it is a web site or a Word document or a Publisher document or an Excel workbook or anything else come to that, PDFOnline appears to give one the opportunity of creating a direct link to it. Have I got it wrong, can one not do that?

My question, as a visitor, is why would I want to do that?

If you can address the question “Why would a visitor want to print what he/she sees on the screen?� then you can answer your own question.

Alan

[Garri]

My question, as a visitor, is why would I want to do that?

If you can address the question “Why would a visitor want to print what he/she sees on the screen?� then you can answer your own question.

Alan

Alan: My original question was in the context of their statement that visitors can 'save' websites/blogs to PDF files.

Why would a visitor want to 'save' websites to a PDF file? That isn't the same question as 'why would a visitor want to print what they see on screen'.

And besides, you wouldn't want to print what you see on screen anyway as it would mean printing out navigational elements which are next to useless in the printed form, unless of course the site owner removed that fluff using a css print style

Enid: I'd taken the PDF save function for granted on OSX and didn't realise PCs don't have this . I don't use it though

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

Why would a visitor want to 'save' websites to a PDF file?

I must admit, I haven’t the first idea why any visitor to any web site should ever want to save it at all, never mind in a PDF format. Save a link to it? Possibly! Save the full contents in PDF format? You must be pulling my plonker!

why would a visitor want to print what they see on screen?

I can envisage the occasional visitors to a web site wanting to print what they see but they can already do that; all they have to do is press the “print� button, page by page. I know; they get extraneous garbage in addition.

Rather than looking in isolation at the possibility of web sites being available in PDF format, I’m looking at the overall possibilities which I think PDFOnline is offering. I think it offers a simple link to whatever one wants to publish, all wrapped up in a PDF format.

Alan

[Garri]

Alan, I can see the benefit of PC users using PDFOnline to convert Word to PDF files but I still can't see the benefit of using it for your site visitors. Emailing them a PDF file, fair enough, but saving a site as a PDF file? Hmmmm....maybe.

There again, I can't see why the hotel industry has to use Flash for their sites with obtuse navigational systems, annoying music which has you hunting around the screen for the 'off' button, repetitive animations that take 2 minutes to draw the same box every time you visit a new page, but they still use these techniques in 2007 going into 2008. So what do I know!