Save a webpage as PDF (browser, command line, API)

Q: How do I save a webpage as a PDF in Chrome?

Press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on Mac), set Destination to Save as PDF, and click Save. Under More settings, tick Background graphics to keep colors and images.

Q: How do I save a webpage as PDF without the date and URL at the top?

In the browser print dialog, untick Headers and footers. With headless Chrome, add the --no-pdf-header-footer flag.

Save a webpage as PDF in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, from the command line with headless Chrome, or in bulk with one API call per URL.

Quick answer. For one page, press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on Mac) and choose Save as PDF. To save pages from a script or app, send the URL to an API.

curl -X POST https://html-pdf.com/v1/pdf \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HTML_PDF_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}' \
  -o page.pdf

There are three ways to save a webpage as a PDF. Which one fits depends on how many pages you have and whether a person or a program is doing it.

For one page, use your browser's print dialog. For a few pages in a script, use headless Chrome. For many pages, or from an app or AI agent, use an API. All three use the browser's print engine, so the results look alike.

In your browser

This section walks you through the print dialog in each major browser.

Chrome

Open the page and press Ctrl+P (Windows, Linux) or Cmd+P (Mac).
Set Destination to Save as PDF.
Under More settings, choose paper size, margins and scale. Tick Background graphics to keep colors and images, and untick Headers and footers to remove the date, title and URL.
Click Save.

Microsoft Edge

Press Ctrl+P, set Printer to Save as PDF, adjust layout and margins (background graphics are under More settings), then Save.

Firefox

Press Ctrl+P or Cmd+P, set Destination to Save to PDF, then Save. Background colors and headers/footers are under More settings.

Safari (Mac)

Choose File > Export as PDF, pick a name and location, and save. For control over paper size and margins, use File > Print and pick Save as PDF from the PDF menu at the bottom of the dialog.

Tips for cleaner PDFs

Use reader mode first (Firefox Reader View, Safari Reader) on articles to drop navigation and ads.
Scroll to the bottom before printing on pages that lazy-load images.
The page's print stylesheet decides the result. Many sites hide menus and change layout for print. If you want the page exactly as it looks on screen, use the "screen" media option described below.

From the command line with headless Chrome

Chrome can print a page to PDF without opening a window.

# macOS
"/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome" \
  --headless --print-to-pdf=page.pdf --no-pdf-header-footer https://example.com

# Linux
google-chrome --headless --print-to-pdf=page.pdf --no-pdf-header-footer https://example.com

--no-pdf-header-footer removes the date and URL lines. Edge and Chromium accept the same flags.

The CLI is great for quick jobs, but it has few options. It can't wait for JavaScript content or add custom footers, and you only get print media. For more control you move to Puppeteer or Playwright. The full flag list is in Chrome headless print to PDF.

With an API

An API call does the same thing from any language, without installing a browser. Send the URL and choose screen styles so the PDF matches what you see in the browser.

curl -X POST https://html-pdf.com/v1/pdf \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HTML_PDF_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com", "media": "screen", "format": "A4", "margin": "10mm"}' \
  -o page.pdf

These options are the most useful for webpages.

"media": "screen" uses the site's screen CSS. "print" (the default) uses its print stylesheet.
"landscape": true for wide pages and dashboards.
"wait_delay": 2 waits up to 10 seconds for late content, and "wait_for_expression" waits for a JavaScript condition.
"footer_html" adds page numbers (leave a bottom margin for it).
"max_pages": 20 fails very long pages instead of charging you for them.
"response": "url" returns a download link valid for 24 hours instead of the file.

More examples in Python and Node.js on the URL to PDF API page.

Save many webpages as PDF

This section shows how to convert a whole list of URLs. Put one URL per line in urls.txt and loop over it. This Bash script names each file after the URL and keeps going if one page fails.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# save-pages.sh: usage: HTML_PDF_KEY=... ./save-pages.sh urls.txt
set -u
mkdir -p pdfs
while IFS= read -r url; do
  [ -z "$url" ] && continue
  name=$(printf '%s' "$url" | sed -E 's#^https?://##; s#[^A-Za-z0-9._-]+#_#g' | cut -c1-120)
  code=$(curl -s -o "pdfs/$name.pdf" -w '%{http_code}' -X POST https://html-pdf.com/v1/pdf \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $HTML_PDF_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"url\": \"$url\", \"media\": \"screen\", \"max_pages\": 30}")
  if [ "$code" = "200" ]; then
    echo "ok    $url"
  else
    echo "fail  $url ($code)"; rm -f "pdfs/$name.pdf"
  fi
  sleep 0.5   # stay well under 120 requests per minute
done < "$1"

Here is the same in Python, if you prefer.

import os, re, requests

os.makedirs("pdfs", exist_ok=True)
for url in filter(None, map(str.strip, open("urls.txt"))):
    r = requests.post("https://html-pdf.com/v1/pdf",
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['HTML_PDF_KEY']}"},
        json={"url": url, "media": "screen", "max_pages": 30}, timeout=60)
    name = re.sub(r"[^A-Za-z0-9._-]+", "_", re.sub(r"^https?://", "", url))[:120]
    if r.ok:
        open(f"pdfs/{name}.pdf", "wb").write(r.content)
        print("ok  ", url)
    else:
        print("fail", url, r.status_code, r.text[:200])

Failed renders don't use credits, so a bad URL in the list costs nothing.

This section covers pages the API can't reach on its own. The API sees each page as an anonymous visitor would, and it only reaches public addresses.

For dashboards, account pages or anything that needs a session, get the HTML yourself. Take it from your server's templates, or capture it after logging in with your own tooling, and send it as html instead of url.

{ "html": "<!doctype html><html>…the rendered page…</html>", "media": "screen" }

Make image and stylesheet links absolute (https://...), inline them, or upload them alongside index.html as a multipart request. In the browser, of course, the print dialog works on any page you're logged into.

From an AI agent

You can also let an AI assistant do it for you. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or another MCP client to the PDF MCP server and ask "Save https://example.com/pricing as a landscape PDF." The agent calls url_to_pdf and returns a link.

Pricing

Here is what the API costs. 1 credit = 1 PDF page. You get 100 free credits once, then $10 for 1,000 pages down to $0.005 per page with the $250 pack.

There's no subscription, and purchased credits never expire.

curl -X POST https://html-pdf.com/v1/signup -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"email": "you@example.com"}'
# Then open the link we email you to confirm (adds the 100 free credits)

Get a free API key · API docs · Guides

FAQ

How do I save a webpage as a PDF in Chrome?

Press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on Mac), set Destination to Save as PDF, and click Save. Under More settings, tick Background graphics to keep colors and images.

How do I save a webpage as PDF without the date and URL at the top?

In the browser print dialog, untick Headers and footers. With headless Chrome, add the --no-pdf-header-footer flag.

How can I save many webpages as PDFs at once?

Put the URLs in a text file and loop over them, sending each one to POST https://html-pdf.com/v1/pdf with {"url":"https://..."}. Failed renders cost nothing, so a broken URL in the list doesn't use credits.

Why does my saved PDF look different from the webpage?

Browsers print with the site's print stylesheet, which often hides menus and changes the layout. With the API, send "media": "screen" to keep the on-screen look.