What is WP2PDF
“WordPress to PDF” (Short: WP2PDF) is a script (or rather a collection of scripts) which can convert the output of WordPress to PDF (Portable Document File), a very popular document format created by Adobe which has the advantage that its content looks the same on every platform, regardless whether or not the right fonts are installed, which local language it uses or how it renders the output. Adobe has opened PDF a long time ago and since then it became one of the major file formats on the Internet. The specifications can be found here.
PDFs are usually created by applications that support that kind of format. There are various “PDF printers” out there, which act as a virtual printer. GhostScript can create PDFs, as well as OpenOffice, which lets you export files to PDF. In Mac OS X, which uses a special kind of PDF for its display rendering, every application that can print, can output to PDF. And – of course – there is Adobe Acrobat, which is the professional (and expensive) solution to create PDFs. WP2PDF is Open Source Software and uses FPDF, the free PDF-library.
WP2PDF lets you convert a blog entry (or different entries and even all entries) to a PDF. It uses the same syntax as the index.php-file that displays the blog in the browser, so you can pass variables to it. You can offer the PDF function to your visitors or you simply use it as a backup tool. There is a plugin by Chris J. Davis, that will provide a small interface for your visitors.
Requirements
A working Wordpress 1.02+ installation and PHP 4.x. is required. Usually WP2PDF supports JPEG, GIF and PNG, however some PHP installations may not support GIFs. GIF-processing can be turned of in this case.
Please also note that creating PDFs (especially large ones) requires much more CPU power than usual scripts. It might be possible that WP2PDF will timeout or does not work at all on your server.
Key features
Here are some of the key features of WP2PDF:
- Creates standard version 1.3 PDFs (Acrobat 4.x)
- Variables can be passed to it to control the output
- Three fonts build in: Arial, Times and Courier
- Support for custom fonts
- Support for images (JPG, PNG, GIF)
- Page header/footer can be displayed and is fully customizable
- Page no/total no of pages can be displayed
- All colors are fully customizable
- Page background can be changed (background image)
- Title page can be integrated
- Table of contents can be integrated
- Support for bookmarks
- Fully support for permission settings (protecting a file with a password and so on)
- Support for hyperlinks (can be turned off too)
- Support for different languages
- and much much more...
You also might want to take a look at the online demo which should give you a good impression about WP2PDF.
Screenshots
Sorry, no screenshots available yet.
Alternatives
If you don't want to install a script on your server and you just want to create a backup of your blog once in a while, you should take a look at LJ Book.
