Good ways to save online articles?
October 15, 2024 3:17 PM Subscribe
A project I worked on is getting some online press. What's the best way to save it?
I'd like to have full colour, printable versions of the articles, with the name of the publication, the header of the website when applicable, and the photos. Showing the URL is good as long as it doesn't come out super lengthy and awkward looking. I'd be saving these pieces for my records, maybe to someday print them out on paper, and eventually to include them as readable content on a website.
I'd like to have full colour, printable versions of the articles, with the name of the publication, the header of the website when applicable, and the photos. Showing the URL is good as long as it doesn't come out super lengthy and awkward looking. I'd be saving these pieces for my records, maybe to someday print them out on paper, and eventually to include them as readable content on a website.
I would both save the webpage, and print it as a PDF. That way you keep the original contents of the page and have a formatted-for-paper version of it stored as well.
posted by mhoye at 3:33 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 3:33 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
I second mhoye's comment, and toss in using some ad-blockers so the pages look cleaner.
posted by mrphancy at 4:11 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
posted by mrphancy at 4:11 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Because I am a total pack rat, I also like to screenshot things like this. Firefox lets you screenshot the whole page (not just what's visible). So if you're a pack rat like me: save the webpage (Save As, Webpage Complete to get all the images and whatever); print to PDF; and screen shot saving the whole page.
posted by kristi at 5:21 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
posted by kristi at 5:21 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions so far! My issue with saving as a PDF is that the ads are preserved too. What ad blocker should I use? I have a Mac and use Chrome.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 5:24 PM on October 15
posted by nouvelle-personne at 5:24 PM on October 15
uBlock Origin is a pretty good ad blocker. Ignore the warnings about how it will no longer be supported, Google is basically trying to make it untenable for obvious reasons.
posted by ssg at 5:31 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
posted by ssg at 5:31 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
You may want to look at the Firefox Extension "Print Friendly & PDF". I like it a lot. It lets you EDIT what you are about to print (I know, we are now in the 21st Century, knock me over with a feather). You need to give it permission to Read & Change data. Clicking on Edit presents a toolbar at top right and also lets you just select/delete text and images. For instance, if it is presenting "Unknown Article" you can just highlight it, delete it and type the title yourself. When you are done you click the X on the toolbar. You can then Print what you have or Create PDF which is then put in your Downloads folder. Even if you don't use it, I at least wanted you to know it exists. Just FYI.
posted by forthright at 6:14 PM on October 15 [9 favorites]
posted by forthright at 6:14 PM on October 15 [9 favorites]
+1ing everyone else's suggestion on saving a link and the PDF is the best way. I helped a writer make an online portfolio and she didn't save some of the PDFs of her articles and some are lost.
Regarding how to make it prettier. Adblockers are a good option and if you are a little tech savvy you can use the browser HTML Inspector to remove whole HTML elements and those changes will reflect in the PDF
posted by Jungo at 7:03 PM on October 15
Regarding how to make it prettier. Adblockers are a good option and if you are a little tech savvy you can use the browser HTML Inspector to remove whole HTML elements and those changes will reflect in the PDF
posted by Jungo at 7:03 PM on October 15
If you have a Macintosh open the web page in Safari and bring up the Reader view. That will strip out the ads and give you a clean text view that you can save as a PDF. This is great for saving a clean copy of the text. Downside is that it doesn't get you the web page banner and it usually doesn't get photos.
If you want photos included, you can try just printing to PDF from Safari (without going through the Reader view). In my experience it does a better job of excluding ads than Chrome does. (can't imagine why.)
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:05 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
If you want photos included, you can try just printing to PDF from Safari (without going through the Reader view). In my experience it does a better job of excluding ads than Chrome does. (can't imagine why.)
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:05 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
I would highly recommend adding the site to Internet Archive, although their current troubles might take a few more days to fix. Then make sure you save the URL to the IA version as an archival copy.
posted by griffey at 7:30 PM on October 15 [5 favorites]
posted by griffey at 7:30 PM on October 15 [5 favorites]
I used to do this regularly so that we could show off our highlights in an annual report. Honestly, I found it easiest to just paste a screenshot into Paint where I would tweak the image so that it looked better (deleting ads, maybe increasing the size of the headline, adding the publication’s logo at the top).
If you wanted to be really swanky you could include a QR code somewhere that links to the online source.
posted by forkisbetter at 7:42 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
If you wanted to be really swanky you could include a QR code somewhere that links to the online source.
posted by forkisbetter at 7:42 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
PrintFriendly does a pretty good job removing the ads and adjusting things for saving to PDF and printing. There's both a web-based tool and browser extensions; I've used it for years to document web-based articles I've published, as sort of digital/analog "tear sheets".
For referring to online articles from your website, archive.today / archive.ph is another useful option in addition to Internet Archive. Make sure the archival links are the ones you save in your reference list, and not the original.
You wouldn't want to copy and paste those entire articles on your website. That'd be a copyright violation, but even worse than that, it'd damage your website's reputation to the search engines.
posted by stormyteal at 8:01 PM on October 15 [3 favorites]
For referring to online articles from your website, archive.today / archive.ph is another useful option in addition to Internet Archive. Make sure the archival links are the ones you save in your reference list, and not the original.
You wouldn't want to copy and paste those entire articles on your website. That'd be a copyright violation, but even worse than that, it'd damage your website's reputation to the search engines.
posted by stormyteal at 8:01 PM on October 15 [3 favorites]
If you have access to a Mac then Paparazzi! is designed for exactly this purpose, it will capture the whole page without scrolling and save it to a small jpeg.
posted by Lanark at 12:15 PM on October 16
posted by Lanark at 12:15 PM on October 16
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For including them on a website, wouldn't it make more sense to just use links to the original article? Reproducing articles without permission is not generally legal.
posted by ssg at 3:29 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]