CodeStore.net comments on "This Site in Twenty Years' Time"

Reply from Philip Storry

Philip Storry — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:45:00 +0100

Ultimately, the longest surviving information we have is on either stone or bone.

The second longest is on papyrus.

Paper will probably last 20 years, though. If you're lucky. ;-)

Personally, I'd suggest that the content is perhaps a little more than the formatting that surrounds it. I'd recommend printing to PDF, but I'd also recommend saving the page as a plain text file and - if you can find a way to convert it correctly - as an ODF file. The ODF spec should last the decades.

But you might want to take a course in stoneworking, just in case. ;-)

Reply from Jake Howlett

Jake Howlett — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:07:00 +0100

Inspired Ketan. Thank you. I'll file that away somewhere and keep my fingers crossed that PDF remains a readable format for years to come...

Reply from Ketan

Ketan — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:52:00 +0100

Here is how I did it on my Windows XP system:

1. Open the web page in Firefox 2.0

2. Save Page as... Web Page HTML only

3. Edit the saved web page to change print stylesheet to screen since we want to print what we see:

From:

To:

4. Open the save in Firefox.

5. Goto File/Page Setup... and make sure "Print Background (image/color)" is checked. You can also change Margins & Header/Footer options.

6. Install any PDF print dirvers. I used PrimoPDF.

7. Print the page to PrimoPDF.

Here are links to my creations:

{Link}

Reply from John Fazio

John Fazio — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:46:00 +0100

Jake,

With Firefox I normally select File/Print then select FireFox instead of Copies & Pages. The available options change to let you select background colors and background images. I then select the PDF button in the bottom left corner and Save as PDF. If you want an exact screen grab then this will not work since you are controlling the print version with a stylesheet and your widths etc... may not be printer friendly.

Reply from Rickard Tauson

Rickard Tauson — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 03:58:00 +0100

Whoops CutePdf is the name..

www.cutepdf.com

Reply from Rickard Tauson

Rickard Tauson — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 03:56:00 +0100

I'm using curePdf works out very well.

Reply from Dietrich Willing

Dietrich Willing — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:10:00 +0100

Screen grab is not yet compatible with Firefox 2.0

Reply from Jerry Carter

Jerry Carter — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:51:00 +0100

Roman's suggestion is far easier to implement than mesing with the intervening layers a page goes through to reach the pdf print driver. Here's the link for Screen grab!. It produces png files, and two other formats, and requries java be configured properly. Worked really well on news.google.com and produced a 962 x 7829 png.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1146/

Reply from Roman Kopac

Roman Kopac — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:06:00 +0100

Maybe you can try a Firefox extension Screen Grab that lets you grab entire page as on image. Then you can print the image. I'm not really sure if it works in FF v2.0, but my girlfriend (she is web designer) used to use it a lot.

Reply from Kathir Peri

Kathir Peri — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:59:00 +0100

"primoPDF" is another one that installs as printer driver and it's a freeware. I'm not sure whether MAC ver is available.

Reply from Jake Howlett

Jake Howlett — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:52:00 +0100

The trouble with PDF print drivers - which I have one of - is they make a mess of the webpage you're printing. Do a print preview of any page and you'll see what you'll get.

If saving the page as a PDF I'd like it to look just like the page itself...

Reply from Jerry Carter

Jerry Carter — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:42:00 +0100

PDF995

It comes in two parts and is adware, but it works really well. Installs as a printer driver. I've used it in the past (before I got into Open Office) for sending official letters via email.

Also, only a windows product (from memory) but I'd be happy to be wrong on that count. That said, in Linux you can configure "print to pdf" in CUPS. KDE makes it easy, I expect GNome does as well.

Reply from Tim Tripcony

Tim Tripcony — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:34:00 +0100

Sourceforge has a project called PDFCreator that allows you to print directly to PDF:

{Link}

Sadly, it only appears to support Windows.

Reply from Jake Howlett

Jake Howlett — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:13:00 +0100

Makes sense John, but I can't see how.

Reply from John Fazio

John Fazio — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:08:00 +0100

Should be a standard feature on your Mac.

Reply from Michael

Michael — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:56:00 +0100

Don't forget the Wayback machine at {Link}

Codestore has plenty of entries and I'm sure in 6 months time, we'll see the links that will get you the blog post/comments for Felix's arrival.

Reply from Jake Howlett

Jake Howlett — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:49:00 +0100

Is there a simple way to convert a webpage to a PDF?

Reply from Ben Langhinrichs

Ben Langhinrichs — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:39:00 +0100

I must admit, I'm with Nick. Print it out. If you want to give the kid some more visible nostalgia about the "good old days", print it to PDF as well and save a DVD of that, as it is more likely to be viewable in twenty years than old HTML/CSS/Domino.

Reply from Nick

Nick — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 06:42:00 +0100

Well the DVD is all well and good, but how about good ole paper? :) Add it to a babybook or something else, somewhere where you may keep all of his kid drawings and such as he grows up. Maybe save it until he becomes a dad, and your an old fart.