Wkhtmltopdf is an open source command-line shell utility that enables you to download, convert and print any given HTML page to a PDF document. It includes the facility to convert images to jpg, png etc.
Wkhtmltopdf is written in C++ and uses the WebKit rendering layout engine to convert the pages with minimal loss of quality.
It is a
useful and reliable solution for creating and storing snapshots of
web pages in real-time.
Installing on Centos 6 is straighforward, just download and untar the tar.gz file from the web site or use wget.
$ sudo yum -y install wget
$ sudo su
# cd /opt
Download the file
# wget http://wkhtmltopdf.googlecode.com/files/wkhtmltopdf-0.10.0_rc2-static-i386.tar.bz2
# wget https://wkhtmltopdf.googlecode.com/files/wkhtmltopdf-0.10.0_rc2-static-amd64.tar.bz2
Untar the file
# tar xvf wkhtmltopdf-0.10.0_rc2-static-i386.tar.bz2
Rename it to something easier to remember and type.
# mv wkhtmltopdf-0.10.0_rc2-static-i386.tar.bz2 htmlpdf
Symlink to /usr/bin
# ln -s /opt/htmlpdf /usr/bin/htmlpdf
# exit
Now use it to download and convert a web page to pdf
$ htmlpdf http://minimallinux.blogspot.com/2013/07/centos-6rhel-install-and-use-openntpd.html ~/minimallinux.pdf
View it with Xpdf
$ xpdf minimallinux.pdf
 |
| Web page converted to PDF with Wkhtmltopdf |
Check the contents with pdfinfo
$ pdfinfo minimallinux.pdf
Title: Minimal Linux: Centos 6/RHEL install and use OpenNTPD local clock sync
Creator:
Producer: wkhtmltopdf
CreationDate: Wed Jul 10 11:44:24 2013
Tagged: no
Pages: 4
Encrypted: no
Page size: 595 x 842 pts (A4)
File size: 283896 bytes
Optimized: no
PDF version: 1.4
Make a table of contents of the page using the toc flag
$ htmlpdf toc http://minimallinux.blogspot.com ~/minimaltoc.pdf
View it with Xpdf
 |
| A Table of Contents generated with Wkhtmltopdf |
Just to get an idea of how it looks.
You can also download to image fomats such as .ps etc, for more information see the help file.
$ htmlpdf --help
For similar tasks in browser see Firefox ConvertToPDF.
Labels: Centos 6, RHEL, Web Page to PDF converter, Wkhtmltopdf
