Browser "Save as PDF" produces ugly results — clutter, broken layouts, and no formatting control. These seven Chrome extensions do it better. We tested each one on the same set of web pages and compared the output quality, features, and pricing.
Free — 3 PDFs per month. No credit card required.
The key features that matter for web-to-PDF conversion.
| Extension | Price | Content Extraction | Templates | Cloud Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pretty PDF Printer | Free (3/mo), $5/mo, $12/mo | Smart extraction | 5 templates | Yes (Pro+) |
| PrintFriendly | Free (ads), ~$5/mo | Manual removal | None | No |
| PDF Mage | Free | None | None | No |
| Save as PDF | Free (watermark), Paid | None | None | No |
| GoFullPage | Free (PNG), Premium | None | None | No |
| SingleFile | Free (open source) | None | None | No |
| Web2PDF | Free | None | None | No |
Price: Free (3 PDFs/month), Pro $5/mo (50 PDFs/month), Pro+ $12/mo (unlimited + cloud + API)
Pretty PDF takes a fundamentally different approach than most PDF extensions. Instead of capturing the page as-is (like a screenshot-to-PDF), it extracts the main content using a server-side extraction engine — similar to browser reader mode but tuned for PDF output. The result is a clean document with just the article content, properly formatted with one of five professional templates.
What sets it apart is the site-specific parser system. Pretty PDF includes dedicated parsers for eight major platforms — GitHub, Notion, Medium, Reddit, Confluence, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, and Substack. Each parser understands the platform's page structure and extracts content optimally. GitHub READMEs get clean code blocks with embedded monospace fonts. Notion pages get expanded toggle blocks. Reddit posts get properly serialized comments.
The five templates — Clean, Minimal, Corporate, Academic, and Dark Mode — use embedded Fraunces and Instrument Sans fonts, so PDFs look consistent regardless of what fonts are installed on the recipient's machine. Pro users can add custom headers, footers, and branding. Pro+ adds cloud storage with full-text search and a REST API for programmatic PDF generation.
Pros: Best-in-class content extraction, professional templates with embedded fonts, site-specific parsers, cloud library, API access.
Cons: 3 PDFs/month on free tier limits casual heavy users. Requires server-side processing (content is sent to Pretty PDF's servers for PDF generation).
Best for: Professionals who need clean, branded PDFs from web content on a regular basis.
Price: Free (with ads in output), Premium ~$5/month
PrintFriendly is one of the oldest and most well-known web-to-PDF extensions. Its key feature is a visual editing interface — after clicking the extension, you see a preview of the page where you can click to remove individual elements (images, paragraphs, ads, sidebars) before generating the PDF. This manual approach gives you control over exactly what ends up in the output.
The trade-off is that this element-by-element removal is time-consuming. For a single page it is manageable, but if you are converting multiple pages regularly, manually clicking to remove the navigation, ads, sidebar, and footer from each one adds up. There are no templates — the output uses a basic, unstyled format. The free tier includes PrintFriendly branding in the PDF output.
Pros: Visual element removal interface, well-established, works without an account on the free tier.
Cons: Manual cleanup required for every page, no templates, ads/branding in free output, basic formatting.
Best for: Occasional use when you need precise control over which elements to include.
Price: Free
PDF Mage is the simplest extension on this list. Click the icon, and you get a PDF of the current page. That is it — no settings, no options, no account required. It captures the full page as rendered in the browser, converting it to PDF client-side without sending data to any server.
The output quality is essentially what you would get from Ctrl+P "Save as PDF" with slightly better page handling. There is no content extraction, no clutter removal, and no template system. Navigation bars, ads, and sidebars are all included. For quick-and-dirty captures where you do not care about output quality, PDF Mage is fast and frictionless.
Pros: Completely free, no account needed, simple one-click operation, client-side processing (no data sent externally).
Cons: No content extraction, no templates, output includes all page clutter, limited development activity.
Best for: Quick captures when formatting does not matter.
Price: Free (with watermark), Paid plans remove watermark
Save as PDF by pdfcrowd uses cloud-based PDF rendering — the page URL is sent to pdfcrowd's servers where it is converted to PDF using their rendering engine. The output quality is generally good, with reliable handling of CSS layouts and web fonts. An API is available for programmatic access.
The main drawbacks are the watermark on free tier output and the privacy consideration of sending page URLs to a third-party service. There is no content extraction — the full page is converted, including navigation and ads. No templates are available.
Pros: Reliable server-side rendering, API available for developers, handles complex CSS well.
Cons: Watermark on free tier, no content extraction or templates, sends data to third-party servers, privacy concern.
Best for: Developers who need an API for automated PDF generation.
Price: Free (PNG screenshots), Premium for PDF export and editing
GoFullPage is primarily a screenshot tool, not a PDF tool. It captures a full-page scrolling screenshot by automatically scrolling through the page and stitching the captures together. The result is a pixel-perfect visual representation of the page. The free tier saves as PNG; PDF export requires the premium plan.
The critical distinction: GoFullPage output is an image-based PDF, not a text-based one. Text in the PDF is not selectable or searchable — it is a rasterized image. This makes it excellent for visual documentation but poor for anything that needs to be read, searched, or copied from.
Pros: Excellent visual accuracy, great for capturing full-page screenshots, pixel-perfect output.
Cons: Not a real PDF (no selectable text), PDF export requires premium, no content extraction, large file sizes.
Best for: Visual documentation, design screenshots, and page archives where text selection is not needed.
Price: Free (open source)
SingleFile saves a complete webpage as a single HTML file with all resources (CSS, images, fonts) embedded inline. It preserves full page fidelity — the saved file looks exactly like the original page when opened in a browser. It is an excellent archival tool backed by an active open-source community.
The catch: SingleFile saves as HTML, not PDF. If you need a PDF, you would need to open the saved HTML file and use browser print or another tool to convert it. This adds an extra step to the workflow. There is no content extraction — the full page with all its interface elements is saved.
Pros: Preserves full page fidelity, open source, active development, works offline, no data sent externally.
Cons: Saves as HTML not PDF, requires a separate conversion step for PDF, no content extraction or templates.
Best for: Web archiving and preservation where HTML format is acceptable.
Price: Free
Web2PDF is a lightweight extension that converts the current page to PDF with minimal configuration. It is simple and does what it says — click the icon, get a PDF. No account needed, no settings to configure.
The output is basic — similar to browser "Save as PDF" with slightly different page handling. No content extraction, no templates, no customization. For a quick, free capture of a webpage as-is, it works. For anything requiring cleaner output, you will need one of the tools higher on this list.
Pros: Simple, free, no signup required, lightweight.
Cons: Basic output quality, no content extraction, no templates, limited customization options.
Best for: Occasional quick captures with no quality requirements.
We tested each extension on the same set of five web pages: a long-form news article (New York Times), a GitHub README with code blocks, a Medium blog post, a documentation page with tables and images, and a recipe page with heavy ads and popups. We evaluated each extension on:
Disclosure: Pretty PDF Printer is our product. We have tried to be fair and accurate in describing each extension's strengths and weaknesses. We encourage you to try multiple extensions and decide for yourself which one fits your workflow.
Free — 3 PDFs per month with all templates. No credit card required.
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