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I'm looking for a solution to save a single web page or a section of it as a vector graphic in my latex document. Do you know a tool, trick or service which helps to do this?

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We would need a web browser (or a program which does the relevant functions of it, the rendering engine) which will output to a vector graphic (in any form) instead of to a pixel-based device (like a screen). I'm note sure if something like that exists which supports modern HTML and CSS. –  Paŭlo Ebermann Nov 5 '11 at 19:39

2 Answers 2

up vote 6 down vote accepted

I suppose you mean a single web page, not a whole web site!

Perhaps you could print to a PDF file from your browser, and either \includegraphic the PDF file, or convert it to *.eps or *.svg using some utilities?

Of course, the problem with printing is you'll get output that looks like it was meant to be printed. Normally that's what you want after all...

If you go into your browser's print settings, you can instruct it to print background colors and images, and turn off header / footer text - that's the easy part. However, it won't get around anything the page itself does to improve the printed output: for instance, Wikipedia has a custom set of styles that are used when printing, to remove superfluous text and graphics (the header, sidebar, edit/expand links, etc).

You might prefer something like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/save-as-pdf/

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Thank you for your answer. Yes, I mean a single web page. I had this idea too, but the pdf always looks ever different to the representation in the browser. –  openscript.ch Nov 5 '11 at 19:02
Then you might take a screenshot, but the result is pixelized, not vector... –  Basile Starynkevitch Nov 5 '11 at 19:04
There are some things that speak against screenshots. One of them is that the document is difficult to homogenize and it getting heavier and heavier. I know to use screenshots, but I want the flexibility of vector graphics. –  openscript.ch Nov 5 '11 at 19:12
Perhaps you might try with different browsers (either more recent versions, or different brands)? –  Basile Starynkevitch Nov 5 '11 at 19:14
wkhtmltopdf seems like exactly the sort of heavy-duty thing required. Remember, for the HTML to be saved as vector graphics, something will need to be a full-on web-renderer in order to actually render the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. Even then, any raster graphics will not be vectorized (at least not automatically). @openscript.ch, a browser extension could simplify things, but even then, a separate program would likely be required. –  Synetech Nov 5 '11 at 20:37

Use wkhtmltopdf as Giles suggests above in a comment. It uses webkit to render your page as a vector PDF from the command line.

(I'm promoting this to a top level answer since this jewel is likely to go unnoticed in the mess of comments).

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