GIMP Version: 2.8.10
Operating System: Windows
GIMP Experience: Beginner Level

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Hi.
I often read Patdavid's tutorials, they are so useful and well done.
Sometimes I would like to get a written copy of one of them; I tried using many virtual printers, but I always get the PDF with an unreadable text.
I suppose -but I'm not at all an expert on that- that it could depend from the font used (I say that beacause I regularly "print" browser's pages when I see something very interesting, and I get perfectly readable PDF).
Hence my request:
did somebody ever tried to "print to PDF" a tutorial from Patdavid?
And did he/she get a readable document? Using which virtual printer?
Thanks a lot...

No replies? No use showing anything linux, which is a bit easier.

In Windows (a win7 VM) using Firefox, (even when I used Win, never used IE, still have a Netscape licensed floppy somewhere)

For a PDF virtual printer, used PDFcreator from Sourceforge, which I know from old. That was a bit of a shock, beware of the advertising addons - which never used to be there.

1. Starting in Firefox, make sure you have the toolbar enabled. The webpage looks like this. http://i.imgur.com/KjtUzKS.jpg


2. Change the page style to 'no style' looks like this http://i.imgur.com/lfKfnQY.jpg

3. Printing to PDFcreator, I was trying to get some change in the pesky bold and coloured fonts that are used, without much success. http://i.imgur.com/usZpkFC.jpg

4. Still some tidy up required and these days LibreOffice Draw is not a bad PDF editor, not wonderful but not bad. I went back to linux for this example, I would hope Win is the same
select the side bar http://i.imgur.com/YUbHRWj.jpg
then delete it http://i.imgur.com/hTaIwz1.jpg

You can also get rid of the end, comments pages if needed.

Still have those bold, titles/highlights which you can resize/edit but tedious. Depends how keen you are The PDF exported from LO is generally readable.

Print to file from Firefox works OK for me (on Linux).

Thanks a lot!
Just following the (easy) indication of using Firefox as browser (I usually use Iron, or Opera, or Avant) I got a readable PDF; it took quite a lot of time, very likely the Firefox interface to the PDF printer (as usually I used Adobe) makes a font conversion.
Anyhow, I'm very happy!!!
Thanks again!

Just a note, I'm approachable (I promise I don't bite. much.).

Ok, a more enterprising person would probably take this as a sign to compile all the tutorials into a nicely formatted e-book/print-book and charge money for it.

not this guy

It may take a little while, and I can't promise it will work in all browsers, but if you give me a few I'll whip up a print-specific stylesheet that should make the print version much, much more palatable (readable/less-annoying/no-sidebars/etc...).

I'll report back shortly for you to test.

really good news!
Thanks a lot Pat!

Don't thank me until I've got it worked out...

Ok, I've thrown together a css print stylesheet. Can you please try printing a page and tell me if it looks any better?

Hi Pat.
First trial using Iron.
Got an almost completely readable text, except for the title.
See attachment

second trial, using Opera
same result (OK 99%, not the title - even if somehow readable)

thitd trial, using Avant
same as previous two
(I will not try Firefox, because the only one that was successful also before your modifications)

In all tests, anyhow, it's very useful to get the text without boring by-side info.
Thanks...

Ah, ok. This is because you don't have the font installed that I use for the titles. I'll fix that right up.

Give it another go, just replaced the stylesheet so all fonts revert to Times/serif (ewwww).

OK Pat.
Just one single trial, because all three browsers behawe in a similar way
ALL OK !!!



May I now say: thanks! thanks! thanks!

Oh good, glad to see it works ok. Sorry I had to revert to such base fonts, but it's the only way to be safe. Plus I'm too lazy to track down all the places where I should have added id's or at least classes where there were strange fonts in use to fail gracefully.

Just another line item for an eventual re-design I suppose...

Thank Pat David for your fantastic tutorials. But thanks to Dinasset too , who have tought me to get your tutorials from the web. Both of you thanks

I am a fan of blog.patdavid.net, the content of this blog has taught me a lot, and is a reference when I think of editing images.
Blog content available in this format is another differential.
Saying thank you is the least I could do.
Thx u very much David!

You're very welcome! Let me know if anything looks strange or wonky!

I use Print Friendly to cleanup "busy" articles to make them easier to read, or to make PDFs. Also, it's easy to remove things that you don't want in your pdf. They have a toolbar bookmarklet, too.

http://www.printfriendly.com/