Students and researchers save hundreds of web sources — journal abstracts, Wikipedia references, blog analyses, documentation, lecture notes posted online. Bookmarks break. Browser tabs get lost. Pretty PDF turns web sources into a permanent, searchable research library with academic-quality formatting.
Free — 3 PDFs per month. Academic template included.
Turn the web pages you rely on for coursework into a permanent collection of clean, readable PDFs.
Professor's notes, slides, supplementary readings, and course handouts posted online — save them as PDFs before they disappear after the semester ends. Your copy persists even if the course page is taken down.
Save every source as a clean PDF with URL attribution for citation. When it is time to write your bibliography, each PDF records exactly where the content came from and when it was captured.
Documentation pages, Wikipedia articles, tutorial sites, and reference guides — clean PDFs without ads, popups, cookie banners, or distracting sidebars. Just the content you need to study, formatted for comfortable reading.
Highlight key passages from long articles — only the selected content goes into the PDF. Extract the one relevant section from a 30-page report instead of printing the entire thing. Perfect for focused note-taking.
Web sources are ephemeral. Research needs permanent records. Pretty PDF bridges the gap.
Permanent records of online sources that may change or disappear. Government data, preprint versions, blog posts, news articles — once saved as a PDF, the content is yours regardless of what happens to the original URL.
Cloud library with folders per project, tags for themes, and full-text search across all your documents. Create a folder for each research question, tag sources by methodology or theoretical framework, and find anything instantly.
Every PDF includes the source URL and capture date for proper attribution. When you reference a web source in your paper, the PDF serves as a timestamped record of exactly what the source said when you accessed it.
Scholarly formatting with serif fonts, tight spacing, and numbered sections — the PDF looks like a formal academic document. Designed for literature reviews, research summaries, and any context where a publication-quality appearance matters.
The value of a research library compounds over time. The workflow is simple: save sources as you find them, organize into project folders, tag by theme or methodology, and use full-text search when writing to find that specific quote or statistic you remember reading months ago. What starts as a handful of saved articles becomes an invaluable knowledge base over the course of a multi-year PhD, an ongoing research program, or even an undergraduate degree.
Every PDF in your library is full-text searchable. When you are writing your literature review and need to find the source that mentioned a specific sample size or statistical method, you search across your entire collection instead of reopening dozens of browser tabs. The search returns results from every document — across folders, across projects, across years of collected material.
The organizational structure is yours to define. Some researchers create folders by project, with subfolders for each chapter or research question. Others organize chronologically or by source type. Tags add a second dimension: you can tag sources as "methodology," "theoretical framework," "counter-argument," or any label that fits your thinking. A single source can belong to one folder and carry multiple tags, making it findable through different mental paths.
Compare this to the alternatives. Zotero and Mendeley excel at managing journal PDFs with DOI-based metadata — but they do not handle web content well. A blog post, a Wikipedia article, a government data page, or an online lecture note does not have a DOI. Saving these as PDFs and importing them into a reference manager is clunky. Bookmarks are fragile — URLs break, pages are updated, entire sites go offline. Browser history is ephemeral and unsearchable. Pretty PDF fills the gap: it captures any web content as a clean, permanent, searchable PDF in your cloud library.
Save any web page as an academically formatted PDF in seconds.
Navigate to a journal abstract, Wikipedia article, blog post, documentation page, lecture notes, or any web page relevant to your research.
Click the extension icon and select the Academic template. The scholarly formatting with serif fonts and numbered sections produces publication-quality output.
Your PDF is generated and stored in your cloud library with the source URL and capture date automatically recorded for citation purposes.
Move the PDF into a project folder, add tags for themes or methodology, and use full-text search later when you need to find a specific passage while writing.
Free tier, no credit card. 3 PDFs per month with the Academic template included.
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