I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?

Thanks!
--
Graeme

On Thursday, 30 April 2020 11:27:56 UTC+1, Graeme wrote:
I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.

Does the forum have a separate 'print view' mode? Or could you use the Stylus browser extension to rewrite the page style sheet to change the quoted text to 0pt white?

PDFSAM and others will concatenate or merge PDFs into one file

https://pdfsam.org/

Owain

On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:27:47 +0100, Graeme
wrote:

I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?


I've given up with "printing" from web pages and copy/paste into a
Word Processor then print (to pdf/file/printer).

html is no longer html.


--
AnthonyL

Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything?

On 30/04/2020 12:22, AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:27:47 +0100, Graeme
wrote:

I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?


I've given up with "printing" from web pages and copy/paste into a
Word Processor then print (to pdf/file/printer).

html is no longer html.


+1. Is this a forum with binaries? Collecting the text is relatively
straightforward. I sometimes use Notepad as a first stage.

In message ,
newshound writes
On 30/04/2020 12:22, AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:27:47 +0100, Graeme

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?

I've given up with "printing" from web pages and copy/paste into a
Word Processor then print (to pdf/file/printer).
html is no longer html.

+1. Is this a forum with binaries? Collecting the text is relatively
straightforward. I sometimes use Notepad as a first stage.

Thanks for the suggestions. yes, lots of large, full colour images.
The forum software is phpBB which seems to be popular, and works well.

I think straight copy/paste of the text is the way forward, with images
added where appropriate.

HTML is indeed no longer html, at least at my basic level. I note
Owain's suggestion to rewrite the style sheet, but that is way beyond my
experience. I do, though, like the idea of producing a pdf file for
each thread then concatenate or merge PDFs into one file.

--
Graeme

On Thursday, 30 April 2020 14:05:24 UTC+1, Graeme wrote:
HTML is indeed no longer html, at least at my basic level. I note
Owain's suggestion to rewrite the style sheet, but that is way beyond my
experience.

You can have a look at userstyles as it may have been done for you already, eg

https://userstyles.org/styles/57/sub...eme-beautifier

Owain

On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 13:41:15 +0100, newshound
wrote:

On 30/04/2020 12:22, AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:27:47 +0100, Graeme
wrote:

I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?


I've given up with "printing" from web pages and copy/paste into a
Word Processor then print (to pdf/file/printer).

html is no longer html.


+1. Is this a forum with binaries? Collecting the text is relatively
straightforward. I sometimes use Notepad as a first stage.

This is NOT a forum.


--
AnthonyL

Why do scientists need to BELIEVE in anything?

AnthonyL wrote:

newshound wrote:

Is this a forum with binaries?

This is NOT a forum.

He wasn't talking about "here", he was talking about A N Other forum.

In message , Andy Burns
writes
AnthonyL wrote:

newshound wrote:

Is this a forum with binaries?
This is NOT a forum.

He wasn't talking about "here", he was talking about A N Other forum.

Funny how we read things. I read 'Is this a forum with binaries?' as
referring to the online forum I mentioned, not 'Is this (uk.d-i-y) a
forum with binaries?', not least because newshound would know that
uk.d-i-y is not a binary group.

Thanks for all the comments. I have transferred the first two forum
threads to pdf by copying and pasting the text and images required which
gives a clean and satisfactory result, although somewhat laborious. Oh
well, perhaps what lockdown was designed for?

Cheers,

--
Graeme

On 30/04/2020 12:22:47, AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:27:47 +0100, Graeme
wrote:

I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?


I've given up with "printing" from web pages and copy/paste into a
Word Processor then print (to pdf/file/printer).

html is no longer html.

I used to copy and past into Word, but now print direct to pdf, or save
the whole page if appropriate as HTML.

For printing and using the web style sheet I use the addon "Print Edit
WE". I have not looked back since. You can also de-select areas you
don't want to output.

I suggest you take a look before giving up.

On Thursday, 30 April 2020 11:27:56 UTC+1, Graeme wrote:
I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?

Thanks!

Lyx. Does an amazing job of merging PDFs. But it does take quite some getting your head around it.

Free - tick.

On 30/04/2020 11:27, Graeme wrote:
I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts.Â* Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use?Â* Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?

Thanks!

Opera browser does a good job of saving web pages to pdf. It may not do
the number of pages you want, but might be worth a try.

If its got to be accessible ie, not just a graphic of a page, I don't
actually think there is any obvious way to do what you want since Adobe say
they want dosh when you try to do a conversion grin.
Brian

--
----- --
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Graeme" wrote in message
...
I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the browser
print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the saved pdf
file includes all the hidden text in the online original rather than just
the text and images I see without clicking or hovering. Hope that makes
sense.

How can I best save what I see?

Secondly, having hopefully achieved the above, can I combine pdf files?
The forum I want to save consists of 30 threads, each with 3 or 4 pages.
Saving as above means saving one page at a time which is OK, but would
leave me with 100+ pdf files.

Any recommended prog or add on I could use? Ideally open source i.e.
cheap or free?

Thanks!
--
Graeme

On Thursday, 30 April 2020 11:27:56 UTC+1, Graeme wrote:
I'm trying to create a pdf file of online forum posts. Using the
browser print to pdf option works, but only up to a point in that the
saved pdf file includes all the hidden text in the online original
rather than just the text and images I see without clicking or hovering.
Hope that makes sense.

How can I best save what I see?

You could try pasting the URLs into something like https://pdfcrowd.com/ - having just quickly tried it it seems to do a reasonable job of 'printing' what you see (although it does add a small banner on the bottom). There a browser extensions to make it a bit more '1-click' too.