url-to-pdf
Infrastructure
web page to pdf api
SHOW HN2017
How HN took it
4 positive, 18 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 6 critical, out of 28 comments about the project. Thread score 0.00.
Idea: 3 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 3 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful for programmatic PDF generation, easy to call from anywhere
From 2 comments
You can call the API from anywhere, from resource-constrained servers, Docker containers that cannot run headless Chrome, JavaScript on a website etc. Also, we'll keep adding new…
jancurn on HNI love this service! I think ease of adoption you can allow pre-made scripts to be shared so the non-technical can easily set up work flows that go right into their email. For…
phmagic on HN
Objections
Converting to PDF is lossy, so it is a poor choice for archiving
From 1 comment
converting to pdf is lossy, i wouldn't use this for archiving purposes, normally i use webrecorder for archiving.
xfer on HN
Headless Chrome lacks GPU support, so some sites render incorrectly
From 1 comment
As long as GPU support is not functional in headless, "any web page" is a misnomer. A large enough percentage of sites use GPU acceleration so that headless mode is useless. This…
colordrops on HN
Command-line Chrome can already do this
From 1 comment
Saving a webpage to a PDF is literally one command line away: chromium --headless --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf=google.pdf http://google.com/ What does Apify add in this case?
conradk on HN
Requests
Accept raw HTML instead of a URL
From 1 comment
Is there a similar API around that accepts HTML instead of a URL? I’ve build one for my project, but I would prefer to delegate this to an external service.
jeppebemad on HN
Support for headers, footers and page numbers
From 1 comment
We are not too happy with our EvoPDF license so in the basis this is a good option. However, I do not think this allows adding headers, footers, page numbers etc.
sebazzz on HN
Support for pages behind login or SSO
From 1 comment
Does this work if the page is behind a password/SSO wall? And is it possible to print multiple Chrome tabs? Printing pages to PDF is pretty straightforward. It's the above two…
panda888888 on HN
Questions
How does it compare to commercial renderers like PrinceXML
From 1 comment
Any info how this compares to commercial html to pdf renderers like PrinceXML?
ak39 on HN
Does it produce accessible PDFs
From 1 comment
Question: does this create accessible PDFs? That would be a really nice _possible_ work around for screen reader users having issues with a website.
Robdel12 on HN
Alternatives named
wkhtmltopdf
From 2 comments
Thanks, I didn't know that was a thing. I was checking out wkhtmltox earlier this week as well. Looks like there are a lot of options available for this. I suspect Apify's using…
scaryclam on HNThere's also wkhtmltopdf that more or less does the same thing using webkit.
Natsu on HN
PrinceXML
From 2 comments
Any info how this compares to commercial html to pdf renderers like PrinceXML?
ak39 on HNIn my experience, Prince is great for static HTML + CSS rendering, but its JavaScript engine is pretty lackluster -- I couldn't get it to work with rendering React components,…
schneidmaster on HN
Bookmark Archiver
From 2 comments
Many projects are already using this for archiving purposes. Check out https://github.com/pirate/bookmark-archiver It's robust because the modern web is pretty much built for…
nikisweeting on HNIf you're interested in running your own personal Way-Back machine that uses Chrome headless for archiving (among other methods), check out Bookmark Archiver.…
nikisweeting on HN
Screen.rip
From 1 comment
I built Screen.rip, which also supports PDF generation. https://screen.rip/#pdf Screen.rip gives you more control over the generated PDF beyond Puppeteer's options (like it can…
laktek on HN
Urlbox
From 1 comment
Also check out https://urlbox.io/. YC alum, super helpful.
dmmalam on HN