Have you ever been on a webpage and wanted to save it as a PDF file? Every once in a while, you may want to keep a webpage around for reference. You might want to save a webpage as a PDF for a bunch of reasons, including websites changing or shutting down completely. Even if you bookmark a webpage, that bookmark could be invalid in the future if the post gets taken down.
Recently I’ve been saving webpages with different guitar music I want to learn. Especially with that type of content, it’s a guessing game as to whether it’ll be taken down at some point. I’ve saved other webpages this way as well, from interviews to app reviews and more.
Rather than save the webpage to something like Pinboard, Instapaper or Pocket (which are all good for other reasons), sometimes it’s best to save them as a PDF. Here’s an easy way to save a webpage as a PDF, right from within iOS.
How to save a webpage as a PDF
You’ll have to make sure you have the Apple iBooks app installed on your device for this to work properly. If you need to download it to your device, you can do so by clicking this App Store link.
- Navigate to any webpage in Safari, and tap on the Share button at the bottom of the screen.
- Scroll until you see the Save PDF to iBooks button in the share sheet, and tap on that button.
- Now, a nicely laid out PDF will be available to you. From the viewer you can search the document, adjust screen brightness, and bookmark your place. You can also see a split out view of all the pages of the PDF.
- In iBooks itself you can view all your different PDF files. Make sure your view is in All Books or PDFs. You can change your view by tapping the drop down menu at the top of the screen.
- If you’d like to Print or Email the PDF, simply open your PDF and tap on the Share button at the top of the screen.
- Once you do, you’ll be greeted with the option to email or print the PDF you saved.
Saving a webpage as a PDF to iBooks is a simple way to keep all your favorite webpages in one place. If you want more control over your PDFs and more features, like the ability mark up the document, there are a number of great apps on the App Store that’ll let you do pretty much anything with the file.
Many of these apps will have in app browsers that allow you to navigate to a website, save the webpage as a PDF, and then open that PDF up for editing.
What app do you use to keep track of all of your PDFs?
What’s your favorite app for dealing with PDF files? Let me know what apps you’re using in the comments section below, or by reaching out on Twitter!
