Currently, web browsers can save pages as either complete HTML (with associated image files, etc) or as HTML text only.

I would like a function to be able to save/export a web page as a PDF from within the browser.  This would be similar to the functionality that allows one to export a document as a PDF from within OpenOffice.

In practice, the user would navigate to an HTML page that they wished to save and from Epiphany's file menu, they would select either "Export as PDF". The page would then be saved as a PDF file, incorporating all of the HTML and graphic elements from the page.

This would eliminate the long-winded current process of saving a file in the web browser, opening it in OpenOffice and then attempting to export it.  The current process is also buggy as OpenOffice often cannot load complex HTML documents accurately and uses a great deal of memory in the process. To be able to export directly from Epiphany would greatly simplify this procedure.


It is handy for archiving websites and mailing them to people as all graphics and associated resources would be in the same file.  Otherwise, one would have to attach these separaptely or create compressed (zipped) files to mail the HTML and all of the JPEGs, etc.


There will undoubtedly be some problems with my request that need to be thought about.  :-)  For example, whilst converting a website to PDF format would be fine for the basic HTML page and any associated PNG or JPEG images, what would we do about animated GIFs, Flash content, embedded film clips, etc?  The more multimedia-rich the webpage, the more problematic this would become, given that PDF is essentially designed for consistent print output, not for animated content.  How does OpenOffice deal with this when multimedia objects are embedded in OASIS document files that are being exported?

Also, should webforms be rendered as PDF forms with active input fields, given that the page will no longer be linked back to the database on the webserver?


I hope that people with more experience and knowledge of programming than myself can work through these issues and any others that I have not thought of as I think the basic concept of exporting directly as PDF from the web browser would be extremely handy for many people.

I am looking forward to your feedback.


Regards,


D. Le Sage
Hobart, Tasmania