Easy HTML to PDF using Google Docs

There are a multitude of services available, online and otherwise, for turning a web page into a PDF. You can of course simply print the page to a virtual PDF printer device, or go via postscript then convert to PDF. However, I often find that the results are not very pleasing (<pre> tags anybody?) and there are times when you don’t want everything from the web page. Today I discovered yet another use for Google Docs – PDF creation from web pages.

Simply:

1. Save the web page (save as “web page, HTML only”)
2. Upload the HTML file to Google Docs
3. Do a little editing, either visually or source, to remove what you don’t need
4. Save, then download as PDF (or an editable format if required)

You’ll be seeing the results of this in my forthcoming Bio::Blogs post.