Only http or https links to public sites. Localhost and private networks are blocked.
Fit mode sizes one PDF page to the document scroll width and height (large pages may be clipped for stability).
Uniform margin on all sides (millimetres). Use zero for minimum whitespace.
Matches “print backgrounds” in Chromium. Turn off for ink-saving, text-first output.
Adds date/title header and page numbers (Chromium print templates).
Emulate @media print rules before generating the PDF.
Rendering runs on SynthQuery servers via headless Chromium. Fair-use limits apply (per IP per hour). For image screenshots instead, see Webpage to JPG. For offline image-based PDFs, use Screenshot to PDF.
PDF preview
Generate a PDF to preview it here. Complex or JavaScript-heavy sites may take up to a minute.
About this tool
Most of us still live in PDFs: contracts, research packets, boarding passes, handouts, and “please read this offline” archives. Yet the source of truth is often a live URL—an article behind a paywall you can access today, a product spec that changes weekly, or internal documentation that renders best in a browser. SynthQuery’s Webpage to PDF converter closes that gap with a clean, form-driven workflow. You paste a public https link, choose how the sheet should behave on paper or screen, and our servers render the page with headless Chromium into a downloadable PDF you can preview before saving.
Unlike dragging a browser print dialog on every device, you get consistent controls in one place: ISO A4 for international teams, US Letter for North American workflows, or a “fit to content” mode that tries to map the scrollable document onto a single tall page when that is what you need for a faithful vertical capture. Orientation, uniform margins, background graphics, optional Chromium header and footer bands, and an explicit switch for print-oriented CSS all sit beside the URL field so you can reproduce a layout decision without hunting through submenus.
Because rendering happens server-side, JavaScript-heavy sites, web fonts, and lazy-loaded media have a fair chance to settle before the PDF is emitted—within the same practical limits any automated capture faces (authentication walls, bot blocking, and infinite scroll remain hard problems). The tool is built for legitimate personal and professional use: saving articles for a flight, filing evidence of public web content, packaging documentation for stakeholders who refuse to click links, and printing long-form content with predictable margins. Pair it with our Webpage to JPG tool when you need a raster slide, Screenshot to PDF when you already have images, or HTML to Image when you are iterating on a static snippet rather than a remote URL.
What this tool does
The interface is organised around URL validation, print semantics, and responsible server use. The URL field accepts standard web addresses, normalises missing schemes, and rejects protocols other than HTTP and HTTPS. Host-level checks mirror our Webpage to JPG pipeline: literal private IPv4 and IPv6 ranges, localhost-style names, and a short denylist of sensitive host patterns never reach the browser engine. That keeps the feature aligned with good citizenship on a shared SaaS host while still supporting the vast majority of public marketing sites, blogs, and documentation portals.
Page size is the primary layout lever. A4 and Letter route into Chromium’s native format presets with your chosen orientation flag, so pagination follows the engine’s built-in print algorithms—generally multiple pages for long articles with automatic breaks. Fit to content evaluates documentElement and body scroll metrics after the load event, clamps width and height to generous but bounded maximums, converts your margin millimetres into CSS pixel padding around that box, and requests a single custom paper size from the PDF backend. The goal is a one-to-one scroll capture without forcing everything onto A4 unless you explicitly want stationery.
Margins are always symmetric and expressed in millimetres for familiarity with physical print. They inset the drawable region inside the chosen paper for standard sizes, and expand the custom paper in fit mode so the inner content area matches the measured scroll rectangle. Background graphics, when enabled, include CSS backgrounds and many canvas fills that would otherwise drop in a conservative print preset. Header and footer bands use Chromium’s template slots for title, date, page number, and total pages—small, grey typography that reads as “system print” rather than part of the site’s brand. The print CSS toggle flips media query evaluation before pdf() so author rules meant for paper can take effect without you manually opening DevTools emulations.
Fair-use rate limits apply per client IP when Redis is configured, matching the same hourly budget class as other expensive Playwright features. There is no separate account login requirement for this free tool, but you should still respect copyright, terms of service, and privacy when archiving third-party pages.
Technical details
SynthQuery uses Playwright to launch headless Chromium with sandbox-friendly flags suitable for containerised hosting. After navigation resolves with the load event, the engine optionally switches emulated media to print so @media print { … } blocks apply before pdf() runs. Standard formats call page.pdf with format: A4 or Letter, landscape boolean, margin dictionary in millimetres, printBackground, and conditional displayHeaderFooter templates. Fit mode bypasses named formats, supplies explicit width and height derived from DOM scroll metrics plus margin-derived padding, and sets displayHeaderFooter only when you requested bands.
Chromium’s PDF generator respects CSS fragmentation cues such as break-inside, break-before, and break-after where authors provided them; otherwise breaks follow heuristic flow layout. Multi-page output for long articles is normal for fixed paper sizes. Web fonts should embed when licensing and network fetches succeed; if a font fails, fallbacks appear as in a regular browser session. Colour remains overwhelmingly sRGB, which matches screen workflows but is not a substitute for prepress CMYK separations. Animated content, video frames, and canvas WebGL are captured only as the engine can rasterise at print time—do not expect frame-perfect video storyboards.
Authentication cookies from your local machine are not available to our server fetch context, so logged-in states generally will not render unless the site exposes the same content anonymously. Bot management providers may challenge datacenter IPs; when that happens you may see timeouts or sparse HTML. For intranet hosts, use an on-premise browser instead—SSRF protections intentionally block private DNS targets even when hostnames look innocuous.
Use cases
Researchers and analysts save long articles, policy PDFs rendered as HTML, and data journalism pieces for offline review on flights or in field locations where connectivity is unreliable. A predictable A4 export stacks neatly beside journal submissions and grant appendices without asking reviewers to revisit live URLs mid-flight.
Legal and compliance teams sometimes need demonstrable snapshots of public-facing statements: pricing pages, terms summaries, marketing claims, or regulator-facing disclosures. PDF is a common evidentiary container, and server-side rendering timestamps the capture to the moment of generation. This is not a notarised chain-of-custody tool, but it beats screenshots scattered across chat apps when you need a single file per URL.
Teachers and workshop facilitators convert blog tutorials, documentation portals, and open educational resources into handouts. Letter or A4 modes play nicely with copiers; background toggles help when diagrams rely on shaded callouts. Corporate learning teams mirror the same pattern for internal wikis that are technically public inside the VPN—note that intranet URLs blocked by SSRF rules will fail here by design.
Product and UX designers archive competitor landing flows, changelog pages, and onboarding journeys. Fit to content preserves vertical storytelling; landscape A4 can capture wide tables from help centers. When interactive states matter more than print fidelity, pair exports with Webpage to JPG for hero captures or Screenshot to PDF to bundle multiple raster steps.
Journalists and content strategists keep reference copies of source articles, especially when headlines or ledes may change after publication. PDFs travel well through CMS attachments and email where HTML pasting corrupts formatting.
Operations and IT teams document router admin pages, status dashboards, or vendor portals that already sit on the public internet (rare but real). Print CSS mode occasionally strips chrome that would waste toner in a runbook PDF.
Everyday users simply want offline reading on a tablet e-reader app that handles PDF better than HTML folders. The preview iframe lets them confirm readability before syncing to device storage.
How to use this tool effectively
1) Open the Webpage to PDF page and locate the Page URL field. Paste a full link including the protocol, such as https://example.com/article, or type a hostname alone—we automatically prepend https:// when the scheme is missing. Only public http and https destinations are accepted; localhost, RFC1918 private networks, and obvious cloud metadata hostnames are blocked to reduce abuse and SSRF risk.
2) Choose a page size preset. A4 matches the default expectations of many European and Asia-Pacific offices. US Letter aligns with printers and binders in the United States and Canada. Fit to content measures the rendered document’s scroll width and height after load (within safety clamps) and sizes a single PDF page accordingly—ideal when you want one continuous vertical sheet rather than fixed stationery. Remember that extremely long pages may be clipped to protect server stability; if that happens, you will see an inline notice after generation.
3) Set orientation when you are on A4 or Letter. Portrait is standard for articles and documentation; landscape helps wide data tables, dashboards, or hero sections that would otherwise shrink uncomfortably. Orientation is disabled automatically in fit-to-content mode because the paper dimensions already follow the live layout.
4) Adjust margins with the millimetre slider. Zero removes symmetric whitespace for a tight digital look; mid values resemble typical office defaults; larger values simulate hole-punch or binder safe zones. Margins apply uniformly on all four sides so the printable box stays predictable for both fixed formats and fit mode.
5) Toggle Include backgrounds when you need marketing pages, gradients, or dark-mode skins to survive the export. Disable it for ink-friendly, text-forward output closer to a traditional article printout. This maps directly to Chromium’s print-background graphics behavior.
6) Toggle Header & footer if you want Chromium’s lightweight running head (date/title) and numbered footline on each sheet. Leave it off for clean, presentation-style PDFs where browser chrome would distract reviewers.
7) Toggle Use print CSS when the site authors meaningful @media print rules—hiding navigation, expanding accordions, or switching typography. Leave it off when you want the screen layout you see in a desktop viewport, which is often closer to marketing intent.
8) Click Generate PDF and wait while headless Chromium loads the page. Complex SPAs may take up to about a minute; simple blogs often finish in a few seconds. When the blob returns, review the embedded preview iframe, confirm pagination and cropping, then use Download PDF to save a filename derived from the hostname and path. If results look wrong, try toggling print CSS or backgrounds, switch between A4 and fit mode, or capture a JPG first for pixel-accurate slides.
Inspect pasted HTML safely, then rely on your local browser print-to-PDF when you want manual control over every print dialog option.
Frequently asked questions
PDF uses Chromium’s print pipeline, not a pixel screenshot. Multi-column layouts may reflow, sticky headers can disappear, and viewport width is fixed around a desktop-class size before capture. Toggling Use print CSS or Include backgrounds often explains the gap: print styles may hide navigation or change typography, while disabling backgrounds removes gradients that you see on screen. Try A4 versus fit-to-content if pagination feels wrong, and compare with Webpage to JPG when you need a literal raster of what Chromium painted.
No. The renderer has no access to your browser cookies or SSO session. Anything that requires authentication in your personal profile will generally show a login wall or truncated content. Download paywalled material only when your subscription terms allow archiving, and prefer publisher-provided PDFs when they exist.
We wait for the load event, then immediately run PDF generation. Many SPAs hydrate before that point, but some lazy routes or client-only data fetches may still be mid-flight. Infinite scroll lists and “load more” patterns only include what the DOM actually contains at capture time—often just the first chunk. If output looks empty, the app may require interaction or defer rendering until scroll; there is no universal fix except choosing a deeper URL state or accepting a partial capture.
Fixed paper modes paginate like office printers: long articles continue across multiple sheets with automatic breaks. Fit to content measures scroll width and height and requests one custom PDF page tall enough to hold that rectangle (plus your margins), clamped to stability limits. It is useful for vertical landing pages but can produce enormous files when authors embed huge canvases. Headers and footers still apply when enabled, consuming a little vertical space on each printed sheet in fixed modes.
To protect shared infrastructure, scroll width and height are capped before PDF creation. If the DOM reports dimensions beyond those caps, Chromium still renders a PDF but may not include the entire theoretical scroll extent, and we emit a response hint so the UI can warn you. For extremely long documentation, split the content across multiple URLs, use fixed A4/Letter pagination, or capture separate JPG sections and merge with Screenshot to PDF locally.
Yes. Your millimetre margin expands the custom paper so the inner drawable region matches the measured content box. Larger margins increase whitespace around the site; zero margin hugs the layout tightly, subject to how Chromium clips overflow.
Foreground images in the document tree usually appear when Include backgrounds is on. Some CSS backgrounds, gradients, and dark-theme skins only survive when that toggle is enabled because Chromium treats them as optional print graphics. Turning backgrounds off often improves text contrast and reduces file weight but can flatten marketing pages that rely on colour blocks.
The tool is designed for ephemeral processing: you submit a URL, Chromium fetches it, and the PDF bytes return to your browser. Routine web server access logs may record request metadata as any HTTP service would; do not submit confidential intranet URLs—they should fail validation anyway. Always follow applicable privacy laws and site terms when archiving third-party pages.
Headless browsing is CPU, memory, and bandwidth intensive. When Redis is available, anonymous requests share a modest per-IP hourly budget similar to our Webpage to JPG endpoint. If you hit the cap, wait for the window to reset or contact us about higher-throughput enterprise needs.
Yes. The layout stacks the form above the preview on narrow screens, switches remain touch friendly, and the preview iframe scrolls like any embedded PDF viewer your mobile browser provides. Very large PDFs may feel heavy on older phones; download to Files/Drive and open locally if the inline preview stutters.