url2pdf-readable

Scripts to convent a web article (URL) to a readable PDF. Designed to read web articles on e-readers.

Example: ./url2pdf-readable https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/07/mitchell-feigenbaum-1944-2019-4-66920160910299067185320382/ example_article.pdf --readable --scroll --delay 10

See how the article got converted into example_article.pdf output.

Command line options:

   Usage: url2pdf-readable [URL] [PDF_OUT_FILE] [--readable] [--verbose]
    URL                link to "print" into a PDF file
    PDF_OUT_FILE       name of the output PDF file

   Optional arguments:
     -f, --firefox     (default) use "$FIREFOX_BIN" to render a PDF file
     (TBD) -c, --chrome use "$CHROME_BIN" to render a PDF file
     -d n, --delay n   "n" seconds delay to download & render all images (10sec default)
     -r, --readable    covert URL webpage into a "readable" article
     -s, --scroll      scroll through the article to load lazy images
     -v, --verbose     increase the verbosity
     -h, --help        show this help message and exit
   (The last -c or -f option takes priority)

How does it render a readable URL?

Offers two browsers to render and print a page to PDF:

• Firefox:
  • Allows converting an article to a readable format
  • Cannot run headless to print into PDF yet see bug, uses Xvfb and xdotool to automate printing to a PDF using a full instance in a virtual framebuffer
• Chrome:
  • Does not offer an experimental "readability" extension through the command line yet
  • Runs headless to print PDF

Dependencies:

1. Firefox or Chrome
2. Bash
3. Xvfb and xdtool if using Firefox. E.g.: sudo apt install xvfb xdotool

Alternatives, and why they didn't work for me:

1. weasyprint or xhtml2pdf are good reporting engines for HTML to PDF, but they require manual pagination, do not offer "readability" option.
2. several solutions based on Node.js

Install

Copy the script, or deploy with pip: pip install git+https://github.com/235/url2pdf-readable.git

Platforms:

• Linux
• other Unix and MacOs could work

Changelog:

v0.1:

• initial release, Firefox support only