Saving a webpage as a PDF comes in handy when you archive certain resources or use them for educational purposes.
But, how do you convert a webpage to PDF in Linux?
_**You can either choose to go the easy way out using the web browser (GUI) on every Linux distribution or use the terminal to turn a webpage into a PDF file.**_
Here, I shall mention both the methods to help you get the job done.
### Method 1: Converting a Webpage to PDF Using Web Browser
Even though I use Mozilla Firefox for this tutorial, you can do the same thing with any of the [best browsers available for Linux.][1]
![][2]
1\. Load up the webpage you want to convert.
2\. Head to the browser menu to find the “**Print**” option or use the keyboard shortcut “**Ctrl + P**.”
3\. By default, it should let you save it as a PDF. You need to hit “Save,” and choose the destination and save the webpage.
![Save webpage as PDF in Mozilla Firefox][3]
The one major problem with this simple approach is that it includes all the elements on the page. This may include comments, footer etc. You may use a PDF editor to remove parts of it but that’s an additional task.
_**A better option is to utilize a browser extension like [Print Friendly][4]. It allows you to edit and remove parts of the webpage before downloading the PDF.**_
### Method 2: Converting a Webpage to PDF or Images Using the Terminal
You probably already know that you can [browse internet in Linux terminal][5] and even [download files using the command line][6]. That’s not surprising considering you can do a lot more in the terminal, including downloading a webpage as PDF.
A nifty open-source command-line tools **wkhtmltopdf** and **wkhtmltoimage** come to the rescue that lets you convert any HTML webpage to a PDF or image file.
It utilizes the Qt WebKit rendering engine to get the task done. You can explore its [GitHub page][7] for more information.
You should be able to install it from the default repository of your Linux distribution. For Ubuntu-based distros, you can type in the command:
```
sudo apt install wkhtmltopdf
```
It is pretty straightforward to use no matter whether you want to convert it to a PDF or image file:
![][8]
To convert a webpage into a PDF, type in:
```
wkhtmltopdf URL/domain filename.pdf
```
As an example, here’s how it would look:
```
wkhtmltopdf linuxmint.com mint.pdf
```
You can choose to use the complete URL as “**<https://linuxmint.com**”> or use the domain name as shown in the example above.
The file generated will be saved in the home directory by default.
You also get a few exciting options when converting a webpage.
For instance, you can **apply a grayscale filter to the PDF file**, **make multiple copies of the page** in the same file, and **exclude images** during conversion.
The grayscale filter may not work on every webpage, but you can try that using the command:
```
wkhtmltopdf -g google.com googlepage.pdf
```
To make multiple copies of pages in the same PDF file, the command would be:
```
wkhtmltopdf --copies 2 linuxmint.com mint.pdf
```
And, if you want to exclude images from the web pages, just type:
```
wkhtmltopdf --no-images linuxmint.com mint.pdf
```
Additionally, if you want to convert a webpage as an image, the command would look like this:
```
wkhtmltoimage linuxmint.com mint.png
```
Note that unlike the GUI method using a browser, using these tools via the terminal has its limitation. It does not seem to convert web pages utilizing any <iframe> code snippets successfully.
Sites like ours and even DuckDuckGo didn’t convert to PDF or an image. However, simple HTML sites like Linuxmint.com, Ubuntu.com, Google.com, worked like charm.
### Wrapping Up
To get the best results, saving a webpage as a PDF using a browser seems to be the way to go. But, if you want more options and go through the terminal, the **wkhtmltopdf** utility should come in handy.
How do you prefer to convert web pages to PDF in Linux? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
