How to save a web page as PDF without ads

Chrome’s built-in Print → Save as PDF captures the page as the site laid it out, which means the header, the sidebar, the cookie banner, and any ad that happened to be on screen come along with the article. On a long page you also get awkward breaks where the layout was never meant to be paginated.

It works better to decide what goes into the PDF before it is generated, rather than cropping the result afterwards.

Steps

1. Open the side panel by clicking the Web to File icon, instead of going to the print dialog.
2. Switch to Article mode. The panel extracts the title, body text, and inline images, and leaves navigation, ads, sidebars, and comment sections behind.
3. Clean up whatever survived. Newsletter prompts and related-articles strips occasionally make it through. Remove them in the panel so they never reach the document.
4. Export as PDF. The file is saved to your Downloads folder and kept in the extension’s export history.

The result is a paginated document whose text can still be selected and searched, so you can highlight and annotate it in any PDF reader.

Print-to-PDF, screenshot, or Web to File

Both modes drop the advertising. Full Page mode removes known ad slots, unfilled placeholders, cookie and consent banners, pop-up dialogs, and sticky headers that would otherwise repeat down the document, while keeping the site’s own layout intact. Article mode goes further and removes the navigation, sidebars, and comment sections as well, leaving only the article.

Full Page mode suits pages where the layout carries meaning, such as a dashboard, an invoice, or a chart-heavy report. Article mode suits pages where the text is what you came for.

Keeping only part of a page

Sometimes a whole article is more than you need. You might want three sections from a documentation page, or a single answer out of a long thread.

Custom mode covers that. Click the blocks you want and they are collected in the side panel, where you can reorder them, edit them, and drop the ones that turned out to be noise. Export the assembled result as PDF and the file contains what you selected, in the order you chose.

When you want an image instead

Some pages are worth keeping as a picture rather than a document: a design portfolio, a chart-heavy dashboard, a receipt, anything you are going to paste into a chat or a slide. Full Page mode exports those as a single full-length image, from the top of the page to the bottom, with the same ad slots, consent banners, and sticky headers removed.

• PNG is lossless and sharp on text, at the cost of larger files. A good default for documentation and anything with fine type.
• JPEG gives smaller files with some softening around text edges. Useful for photo-heavy pages, or when the result has to go by email.
• WebP is noticeably smaller than PNG at similar quality, and every modern browser and image viewer opens it.

Your format choice is remembered for the next export. On a very tall page the capture resolution is scaled down automatically so the image stays within what the browser can encode, which yields slightly lower pixel density rather than a failed export.

Two things go wrong often enough to be worth knowing. If the bottom of the page is missing, it had not finished loading its lower sections: scroll down once so the content renders, then capture again. If a band of the image comes out blank, the site unloaded an off-screen section to save memory, so reload the page and capture before scrolling around.

The trade-off is that an image cannot be searched and you cannot copy a quote out of it. When the words are the point, PDF keeps the text selectable and Markdown keeps it editable.

Notes on quality

• Text stays text. The PDF is generated from the page content, so text can be selected, copied, and searched.
• The page size is yours to pick. A4 by default, with A3 to A6, B4/B5, JIS B4/B5, Letter, Legal, and Tabloid available, in portrait or landscape.
• The source URL is recorded in the document, so you can always get back to the original.
• Links stay clickable and are styled consistently across the preview, the PDF, and image exports.
• Long pages are handled. Content is paginated rather than squeezed onto one enormous sheet.
• Local processing. The page is converted inside your browser and nothing is uploaded. The privacy policy has the details.

Frequently asked

Can I export a page that requires a login? Yes. The extension works with the page your browser has already rendered, so anything you can see, you can export. Chrome blocks extensions on its own internal pages (chrome://, the Chrome Web Store).

Why does a PDF sometimes miss late-loading content? Some sites fetch parts of the article after the first render. Reload, let the page settle, then export again.

Can I choose the paper size? Yes. Pick the page size and orientation next to the format selector before exporting: A3 to A6, B4, B5, JIS B4, JIS B5, Letter, Legal, or Tabloid, in portrait or landscape. Your choice is remembered for the next export. Margins are set for readability and are not adjustable.

Is there a watermark or a page limit? No. The extension is free, has no account, and adds nothing to your files.