WEB to PDF Extension

[keyplyr]

UA: WEB%20to%20PDF%20Extension/1 CFNetwork/758.3.15 Darwin/15.4.0
Protocol: HTTP/1.1
Robots.txt: No
Host: Various

MobileSafari extension to turn webpages into pdf. I assume there is a similar extension for Safari desktop.

[lucy24]

This made me curious, so I searched for UAs containing percent signs. (Usually they get eaten by my log-wrangling routines through routine disencoding.) Far as I can tell, they're all concerned with image-fetching.

2%20Million%20WPs/8.91.1 CFNetwork/459 Darwin/10.0.0d3

Bing%20for%20iPad/1.1.3 CFNetwork/548.1.4 Darwin/11.0.0

CLIPish%20Pro2/10.11 CFNetwork/609.1.4 Darwin/13.0.0

CoverScout%203/3.4.3 CFNetwork/454.11.12 Darwin/10.7.4 (x86_64) (iMac12%2C2)

HD%20Wallpapers%20&%20Backgrounds/4.3.0 CFNetwork/758.1.6 Darwin/15.0.0

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_11_4) AppleWebKit/601.5.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/9.1 Safari/601.5.10 (compatible; Twirl SpiderBot/1.2 Instance #1; https://www.twirl.ws/s/?query=%23bot)

Mozilla/5.0%20%28iPhone%3B%20CPU%20iPhone%20OS%206_0%20like%20Mac%20OS%20X%3B%20en-us%29%20AppleWebKit/536.26%20%28KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko%29%20Version/6.0%20Mobile/10A5376e%20Safari/8536.25%20%28compatible%3B%20Googlebot-Mobile/2.1%3B%20%2Bhttp%3A//www.google.com/bot.html%29

NoteTaker/2.4.0 CFNetwork/596.2.3 Darwin/12.2.1 (x86_64) (Macmini6%2C2)

Open%20Kamio/3.5.7 CFNetwork/711.1.16 Darwin/14.0.0

picTrove%202%20pro/177 CFNetwork/758.4.3 Darwin/15.5.0

Puffin%20Free/13818 CFNetwork/711.3.18 Darwin/14.0.0

Rare%20Wallpaper/3.1.1 CFNetwork/672.1.15 Darwin/14.0.0

Safari%20Technology%20Preview/11601.6.17 CFNetwork/760.5.1 Darwin/15.5.0 (x86_64)

Safari/6533.20.27 CFNetwork/454.11.12 Darwin/10.7.0 (i386) (iMac11%2C2)

Safari5533.21.1 CFNetwork/438.16 Darwin/9.8.0 (i386) (MacBook4%2C1)

WEB%20to%20PDF/2.3.2 CFNetwork/609.1.4 Darwin/13.0.0

I assume there is a similar extension for Safari desktop.

No need for one; you'd just use Print. In general Safari gives the best results, but in some cases Firefox has worked better. No idea why there should be such a difference among browsers, but when making a PDF from HTML, I always try multiple versions.

[keyplyr]

No need for one; you'd just use Print.

Yes, I think most all browsers do that.

For me, someone creating a pdf from my web page is more than just gaining the ability to print it. One of the benefits of turning the page into a pdf is now they have a portable file... and the file of choice for many slothful students who love to plagiarize.

Contrary to popular belief, imitation is *not* the sincerest form of flattery (where's that angry looking emoticon when ya need it?)

[lucy24]

One of the benefits of turning the page into a pdf is now they have a portable file...

Is that what people do? If I want to save a web page I just save it. (For this I prefer Firefox or Camino, which saves everything in its original format: html plus directory containing all supporting files. Safari makes it all into a "web archive", which is harder to work with.)

"Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism"?

"Immature writers plagiarize; mature writers steal"?

slothful students who love to plagiarize

Yes, that's why we get the visits from source-checking robots. It always makes me maliciously happy when people arrive at pagename.html direct from a search engine, because it can only mean that they pasted the entire assignment directly into the Search box--and got exactly what they deserved. (It also means that some professors are giving the identical assignment year after year, so I guess everyone is getting what they deserve.)

[keyplyr]

Also, it depends on the type of your web site. Pulling down web pages for later use may be an acceptable practice for some sites, but not others. Republishing articles as pdf (or any other method) may be acceptable for some sites, but not others.


"professors are giving the identical assignment year after year"

Well some things don't change much. Courses will typically use the same texts for years and now that material may be online.