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Any virtual printer for .doc or .rtf?

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Carol Haynes:
Evernote has the disadvantage that it loses all page formatting for web pages (even the new version has that problem).

SnagIt 9 doesn't allow you to export to editable DOC or RTF formats but it does give complete control over what you capture and the quality of the output. Trouble is that any capture from a screen will give realtively poor print output because the image it is capturing is limited to 92dpi.

Another approach you could try is save pages you want to print to MHT files in Internet Explorer. They are just a capture of the HTML and so retain full text and image quality of the original page.

Lastly if you want to save web pages as RTF files just cut and paste into Word and then save it as DOC/RTF is probably just as simple as using a virtual printer driver. OK it isn't automated (most printer drivers aren't either and often do a terrible job) and CSS based formatting tends to get messed up but at least you get an editable RTF or DOC file when you have finished.

40hz:
Have you tried PrimoPDF? (FREE)

http://www.primopdf.com

I use this to grab web pages all the time. I does a great job of preserving layout and it has selectable output optimizations (i.e. best for print, screen, etc.).

The problem with "printing" to RTF or DOC is that you cannot retain web layout formatting. Since most of the things you mention probably reside within frames or text boxes on the webpage, Word has no option other than to treat them as separate pages or sections when it converts html since it wouldn't know how to anchor them to other objects.

If you just want the text on a page, you could just select and copy, then paste to a Word document after running your clip through PureText to strip out everything that isn't text.

PureText can be downloaded here: www.stevemiller.net/puretext/  8)

4wd:
I usually just save the web page in it's entirety first in Firefox, (which preserves all the formatting), then use Kompozer to remove everything I don't want including ads, scripts, etc, etc.

Then just print the edited web page to PDF from Firefox using novaPDF Lite v5 Desktop, (was a Give-Away-Of-The-Day).

I would think that using a WYSIWYG html editor on the original content would be easier than trying to edit interpreted .doc output of a web page.

Plus it doesn't cost anything, (if you use a free PDF printer)  :Thmbsup:

BTW, you can actually skip a step by just using Kompozer to view the web site, edit to how you want and then Save or Print for a local copy.

Just don't select Publish - the original site owner might have a heart attack if he's forgotten to set his permissions correctly  ;)

mwb1100:
I think that your suspicion that it's the web site (or the browser) that's pacing objects on the page in a manner that you don't like instead of the virtual PDF printer is correct.

But, if you have MS Office installed you'll have a "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" and/or a "Microsoft Office Document Image Writer" that may handle things better than your PDF virtual printer.  Or you can get the XPS Writer and Viewer from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx.

I guess XPS is Microsoft's attempt to out-do Adobe's PDF.  I'm not sure they are being very successful.

4wd:
But, if you have MS Office installed you'll have a "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" and/or a "Microsoft Office Document Image Writer" that may handle things better than your PDF virtual printer.  Or you can get the XPS Writer and Viewer from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx.-mwb1100 (August 14, 2008, 09:05 PM)
--- End quote ---

It also seems to be installed with XP SP3 since I don't have Office installed, (and never will), and it's there.

Mind you, I don't know if it works since I can't view them  :P

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