Convert HTML to PDF HyperText Markup Language ↔ Portable Document Format Free Online Secure
Drop a saved .html file and get a PDF. Your browser draws it, so every script it has a font for comes out right.
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Drop an HTML file here, or choose one.
Your file never leaves this device. Everything runs in your browser.
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Where PDF comes from
PDF began as a question John Warnock put to Adobe in 1991: why can a document not look the same on every machine that opens it? The answer, released in 1993, was a format that carries its own fonts, its own page geometry and its own description of every mark on the page, so that nothing has to be re-laid-out at the other end. For fifteen years it belonged to Adobe; since 2008 it has been an open ISO standard, which is why government forms, court filings and archives can insist on it without tying anyone to one company's software. That is the whole reason to convert into PDF: it is the point at which a document stops changing.
Where you meet it
Anything that leaves your hands and must arrive looking the same: a contract to be signed, an invoice, a CV, a thesis, a tender, a form a government department will only accept in one layout. It is also what a print shop asks for, because a PDF carries the fonts and the exact page size rather than hoping the printer has them. Images become PDFs for the same reason — to be sent as a document rather than as a picture somebody might crop or resize.
Questions people ask
Will the layout change when I convert?
That is precisely what PDF is for: once made, the layout is fixed and will look the same wherever it is opened. The risk is in the moment of conversion itself, not afterwards. If the original document uses a font your machine does not have, the conversion substitutes a similar one and lines can shift slightly — so it is worth opening the result and glancing at the last page, where any accumulated shift shows up most. After that, nothing moves again.
Can the text still be selected and searched?
If the original was a text document — a Word file, a spreadsheet, a web page — then yes: the words are carried across as words, and the PDF can be searched, copied from and read aloud by a screen reader. If the original was a photograph or a scan, the PDF contains a picture of text, which looks identical but cannot be searched. Making that searchable needs character recognition, which is a different job from conversion.
Does the file lose quality?
It depends on what the two formats can hold. Converting between formats that store the same thing — a PNG to a BMP, a WAV to a FLAC — loses nothing. Converting into a format that throws information away to save space, such as JPEG or MP3, loses a little every time, and converting back does not bring it back. Where a choice exists, this page errs towards keeping the original quality rather than making the smallest file.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. The conversion happens inside your browser, on your own machine; the file never leaves it and there is no server here that could receive it. That is why a large file is limited by your own memory rather than by an upload, and why nothing you convert can appear in anybody's logs — including ours. The audio and video tools do fetch their conversion engine from this site the first time you use them, some thirty megabytes once; after that the work still happens entirely on your machine.
Why people convert HTML to PDF
A web page is a living thing: it changes, it moves, it disappears. A saved HTML file is only slightly steadier, because it still depends on a browser to show it and it looks different from one screen to the next. A PDF is fixed. When you convert HTML to PDF, you turn a page into a document that opens the same way everywhere, that can be filed, emailed and printed, and that will look next year exactly as it looks today.
The reasons are usually practical. You saved an article, a receipt, a booking confirmation or a set of instructions and you want a copy that will not vanish. You wrote a page by hand, perhaps a report or a CV, and you need it as a PDF to send. Or you exported a document from some program as HTML and now someone asks for a PDF. In each case you are converting a page into a document, and converting HTML to PDF is the quickest way to do it.
This page converts HTML to PDF in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere, which matters when the page is a receipt, a letter or something you do not want a stranger's server to see. Below you will find what carries over, what is deliberately left out, and how to get a clean result.
What the conversion keeps
Headings, paragraphs, lists, tables and links
When you convert HTML to PDF here, the headings, paragraphs, lists, tables and links are kept. The text in the PDF is real text: you can select it, search it and copy from it, and it stays readable by assistive software. It is not a photograph of a page, which is why the file stays small.
Your browser does the drawing
One useful detail about how this page works: your own browser draws the page, so it uses the fonts your device has. That means every script the device has a font for comes out right: Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and more. A converter that carries only a handful of fonts would turn those into empty boxes. Here, if your browser can display it, the PDF can contain it.
Why that matters for non-Latin text
Many simple converters can only write text in a narrow set of alphabets, and anything else becomes squares or question marks. Because your browser already knows how to draw your language, a page in Arabic or Chinese converts just as well as one in English. The writing direction and the letter shapes are handled by the same engine that shows the page on screen.
What is deliberately left out
The page's own stylesheet
A web page usually comes with a stylesheet, a separate set of rules for colours, fonts, spacing and layout. Here the page's own stylesheet is dropped. What you get is the content with a plain, clean, readable layout of the converter's own, not the colours and arrangement of the original site. That is a trade: you lose the design, and in return you get a tidy document without the clutter that a page's styling can bring.
Pictures loaded from the web
Pictures that the page loads from somewhere on the internet are dropped too. The reason is simple: nothing in this converter reaches out over the network. Your file is read locally, and the converter never goes off to fetch an image from another site. That is also part of why it is safe to use on private pages. If the page's pictures are embedded in the file itself, rather than loaded from elsewhere, the situation is different, but most pictures on web pages are linked, not embedded.
Scripts never run
Scripts on the page, the bits of code that make menus open or content change, never run. This is a safety rule as much as a limitation. A saved page can contain code that does all sorts of things when opened normally. Here it is treated as plain content and simply not executed, so converting a page you did not write cannot trigger anything unexpected.
What to expect, in short
If your page is mostly text, such as an article, a letter, a set of instructions or a report, the result is a clean document with all the words, headings, lists, tables and links. If the page depends on its design or its pictures, such as a gallery, a dashboard or a designed newsletter, the PDF will carry the words but not the appearance.
What an HTML file actually is
HTML is the language web pages are written in. A file ending in .html is plain text with small markers, called tags, that say "this is a heading", "this is a paragraph", "this is a list", "this is a link". Your browser reads those markers and draws the page. The file itself holds only the structure and the words; the colours, fonts and layout usually come from a separate stylesheet, and the pictures from separate image files or from other sites.
This is the key to understanding what happens when you convert HTML to PDF. The converter reads the one file you give it. The structure and the words are right there, so they come through. The stylesheet and the pictures are elsewhere, and this page does not go looking for them, so they are left out. What remains is the substance of the page in a clean layout.
What a PDF adds
A PDF turns that flexible structure into fixed pages. A web page can reflow to fit any window; a PDF cannot, and that is its strength for filing and printing. After you convert HTML to PDF, the text is set in pages of a standard size, with the headings, lists and tables laid out in order.
How to save a page so it converts well
Most browsers offer "Save page as" in the menu. You will usually see a choice between saving the complete page, which creates a folder of images and style files beside the HTML file, and saving the HTML only. For this converter, either choice produces a file you can use, but only the text and structure in the HTML file itself will be converted. Images saved into a neighbouring folder are not read, because the converter handles the single file you select.
Pages that were built entirely by scripts after loading can save as an almost empty HTML file, because what you saw on screen was assembled on the fly. Articles, documentation and static pages save well. If a saved page opens blank, the page was a script-built one, and a different approach, such as your browser's print-to-PDF, will serve you better.
A tidy way to prepare an article
Many browsers have a reading view that strips a page down to its title and text. Saving from that view often produces a cleaner HTML file than saving the full page, free of menus, banners and adverts. When you then convert HTML to PDF, the result is a clean, readable document of just the article. It is worth trying whenever the original page is cluttered.
Right-to-left and Asian scripts
Because your own browser draws the page, text in Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi and other scripts is handled by the same engine that shows it on screen. That includes the direction of writing and the shaping of letters, which in Arabic change form depending on their neighbours. A converter that carries only a few built-in fonts would turn all of that into boxes. Here, if your browser shows the page correctly, the PDF will contain the text correctly.
If something does look wrong in a particular script, the usual cause is that your device lacks a font for it. Install a font that covers the script, reload the page and convert HTML to PDF again.
Mixed-language pages
A page that mixes languages, for instance an English text with a few Arabic or Chinese phrases, converts without special handling, since each fragment is drawn with whichever font your device uses for that script.
How to convert HTML to PDF here
Save the page as an HTML file
If you want to convert a web page you are looking at, save it from your browser as an HTML file first. Many browsers offer "Save page as" in the menu. Choose the HTML option, and keep the file somewhere you can find it.
Choose the file
Drop the .html file onto the page or pick it from your device. It opens locally and nothing is sent to a server.
Convert and check
Press the button and download the PDF. Open it and scroll through: check the headings, a page with a table and the last page. If something important is missing, check whether it was a picture loaded from the web or something drawn by a script.
Tips for a better HTML to PDF result
Prefer pages made of text
Articles, documentation, letters and reports convert beautifully. Pages whose content is generated by scripts, such as some dashboards and apps, may look empty, because the scripts that fill them in do not run.
Embed what you need
If you are writing the HTML yourself, put the text directly in the file rather than loading it from elsewhere. What is in the file travels; what is fetched does not.
Keep the original
Never throw away the HTML after converting. The PDF is for reading; the HTML is the source you can edit and convert again.
Questions people ask before converting
Why are the images and colours missing?
The page's own stylesheet and any picture loaded from the web are dropped, because nothing here reaches the network. The content is kept in a plain layout.
Why is a part of the page empty?
If that part is filled in by a script, it will be empty, because scripts never run in this converter. A saved copy of a page that builds itself on the fly will often be mostly blank.
Does it work in my language?
Very likely yes. Your browser draws the page, so any script your device has a font for comes out correctly, including right-to-left languages and Asian scripts.
Is my file uploaded?
No. The conversion runs in your browser and the file never leaves your device.
Are links still clickable?
Links are kept in the PDF. Whether they are clickable depends on the PDF reader, but their text and destinations are preserved.
Who converts HTML to PDF
Anyone saving receipts and confirmations
An order confirmation, a ticket or a booking page is gone from the web in a few months. A PDF copy is a lasting record you can file or print.
Writers and developers
People who write documentation, reports or CVs in HTML often need a PDF to send. Converting HTML to PDF gives a tidy copy without opening a separate program.
Researchers and students
Articles and notes saved from the web become a stable document that can be annotated, shared and cited with a fixed text.
Common mistakes
Expecting the web design to appear
The stylesheet is dropped, so the PDF has a plain layout. If the design matters, use your browser's own print-to-PDF function, which draws the page as it appears.
Converting pages that build themselves
If a page is assembled by scripts after it loads, a saved copy may be empty. Check the page contains its text directly before you convert.
Deleting the source
The PDF cannot be edited easily. Keep the HTML so later changes stay simple.
Related conversions and tools
If you want to go the other way, convert PDF to HTML turns a document back into a web page, within the limits of PDFs not remembering their structure. For office documents, convert DOCX to PDF and convert ODT to PDF do the equivalent job. Drawings have their own route in convert SVG to PDF, and convert EPUB to PDF handles e-books.
Once you have a PDF you can merge it with others, compress it for email, watermark it or protect it with a password.
When converting HTML to PDF is not the best route
Sometimes another route serves you better. If you want the PDF to look exactly like the page appears on screen, with colours, layout and pictures, use your browser's own print-to-PDF feature on the live page, which draws everything the browser shows. If your page is a dashboard or an app that fills itself in with scripts, a saved copy will not contain the content, so print the live page instead.
For documents whose real substance is text, such as articles, instructions, receipts, letters and reports, converting HTML to PDF in the browser is quick, private and reliable. It leaves your original file untouched, so you can edit the HTML and convert HTML to PDF again whenever you like.
Combining several pages into one PDF
If your material is spread across several pages, such as chapters of a manual saved as separate files, convert each one to its own PDF and join them in order with the merge tool. You end up with a single document that reads from start to finish, even though it started as many separate pages. Adding page numbers afterwards completes the effect.
Keeping the result small
PDFs made from text pages are usually small, because they hold characters rather than pictures. If you ever get one that is larger than you expected, it can be reduced afterwards with a compression step, although with pages that are mostly text this is rarely needed.
Your page stays on your device
The conversion happens locally. Your HTML file is read by your own browser, turned into a PDF there and handed back to you. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no copy on a server. And because scripts never run and nothing is fetched from the network, converting a saved page is a safe operation even when you did not write the page yourself.
A worked example
Say you saved a booking confirmation from a travel site as an HTML file. It has a heading, the traveller's details, a table of flights and a few links. You drop the file here and press convert. The PDF has the heading, the details and the table, plus the links, in a plain layout. The airline's logo and the coloured banner are gone, because they came from the site's stylesheet and the web. All the information you need is there, selectable and searchable, and you can file the document or print it.
Before you close the page
Check that you downloaded the PDF, that the text you need is present, and that you kept the HTML. If all three are true, converting HTML to PDF is done.
Summary
To convert HTML to PDF here, save the page as an .html file, drop it on the page and press the button. Headings, paragraphs, lists, tables and links are kept as real, selectable text, drawn by your own browser so every script your device has a font for comes out right. The page's own stylesheet and pictures loaded from the web are dropped, and scripts never run. Nothing leaves your device.