Capture that web page!
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How many times have you tried to print a web page only to find that the content on the page has been chopped and the output looks different from what you saw on screen? Or you tried to save a page locally but the links no longer work? Or you bookmarked a page only to visit it later and see that the page has been removed? Your answer to these problems – Adobe Acrobat Web Capture. More after the break…
Using Acrobat Web Capture you can convert an entire web page, portions of a web page or even an entire site into a PDF document. In Acrobat 9, we have greatly improved Acrobat’s ability to convert web pages into PDF such that it now works very well with the modern web correctly preserving all links and Flash content.
So, why would you need to convert a web page to PDF? For any number of reasons:
- You want to capture an interesting article that you want to read when you are offline
- You want to archive information that may change later on with the date and time stamp of when it was captured
- You want to collect a variety of related information from the web for your research into a single digest
- You want to send a prototype of a web page you have designed for review
PDF captured from the page: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/adobepdf.html
Click on image to see it larger.
We also often heard from customers who wanted to capture just snippets of content from various websites and aggregate them. To make that easier, we have introduced a new Select tool in Acrobat 9 Web Capture. The new tool makes it extremely simple for the user to choose just the content he/she wishes to capture and convert it to PDF leaving out irrelevant material such as banners, advertisements etc.
You can also capture an entire site using Web Capture. Not only do all the links continue to work in the PDF, they also link to local content within the PDF, where applicable, so that you can truly browse the site offline.
Web Capture can be invoked through the Acrobat toolbar in Internet Explorer on Windows and through the Adobe Acrobat 9 application on Windows and Mac platforms. If you would like to understand how to use Web Capture, Rick Borstein has a great video demonstration on his blog here.
Please share any comments or feedback you have – we would love to hear from you on how you have used and found Web Capture useful!
Thank You,
Sanjoy Ghosh, Acrobat Product Manager
Web Capture sounds very appealing. Is there ever going to be a Linux version of Acrobat, not just Reader (we have that already), but the whole application?
[Linux support is something we continue to evaluate - thanks for voicing your support as well. Currently, we offer Adobe Reader on Linux, which includes the ability for Linux users to participate in commenting, forms and digital signature workflows via Reader-extended Adobe PDF files. - Dave]
Thank you for sharing….
I’ve used the web capture feature in previous versions and it worked great, but I’m wondering if this latest version of Acrobat has the ability to capture Flash and other media on the page too. Does anyone know?
[Scott - Acrobat 9 does have limited ability to capture Flash content. By limited I mean that it captures simple (non interactive) Flash content in a page but does not capture more complex content such as entire web pages which have been created in Flash. Media such as video on a web page is not captured. - Sanjoy]
is that Web Capture 9 dont not support firefox? coz i search all setting and cant find it so may help?
[Dev - See above. The Web Capture button only appears in Internet Explorer (Windows). However, you can always launch Acrobat, go to File > Create PDF > From Web Browser and paste in a URL. - Dave]
Will Web Capture eventually support Firefox? For some purposes, such as preserving a snapshot of a web page with forms filled, pasting a URL into Acrobat isn’t an option.
Firefox users shouldn’t have to fall back to IE or the PDF printer driver, right?
web capture utility is not working – keeps saying could not access web capture utility. please advise.
[Sam - I would try going to your Add or Remove Programs Control Panel, selecting Acrobat, and running Change/Remove > Repair. - Dave]
I just upgraded to Acrobat 9 pro. I am trying to convert an entire page to PDF in IE but I am still only getting the part of the page that is seen on the screen. It is a page that was created on the fly from results of a search so there is no URL to enter into the convert to pdf via Acrobat. Is there an option for capturing screen vs capturing full page and I just don’t see?
thanks!
There is a web capture feature in IE but not in Firefox. Do you intend to write a similar feature for Firefox users. It is not always helpful to have to open Acrobat 9 and then paste in the URL in order to do a capture of a specific page or pages as you browse.
[John - It's a feature request we've heard before. But please note your requests here so we can tally your vote with the others. Thanks! - Dave]
How do I convert a PDF file to a Word file?
I’m using Adobe Acrobat 8.
Thanks!!
[Linda - It should be under File > Save As. Then choose "Save As File Type: Microsoft Word (DOC)". In A8, we may have labeled it as Rich Text Format (RTF), but you can open up an RTF document in Word. - Dave]
I’ve upgraded from Vista to Windows 7. Could not use the web capture using Acrobat 9 PRO. So I did a repair, but still had the same error message. I restarted Windows 7 but got the same error message.So I deactivated, uninstalled, and did a reinstall of Acrobat 9 PRO. I still get the following error message:
“Could not access Acrobat’s Web Capture facility. Acrobat may be busy or waiting for input.”
What can I do to fix this?
~~lad
[Lois - Acrobat 9 supports Windows 7 only if you have the Acrobat 9.2 patch installed. Have you applied the Acrobat 9.2 patch? If not, please do so by starting Acrobat, then going to Help > Check for Updates. You can also get it here. - Sanjoy.]
Your site does now show up right in the Amaya browser, I thought you might want to know.
Hey Dave, I submitted the request to have Firefox treated equal to IE. Hope someone out there listens. Amazing that Adobe has ignored this for so long.
I am running Windows 7 (64-bit) IE 8 (32-bit) and Acrobat 9 Pro with the 9.2 patch. I still receive the “Could not access Acrobat’s Web Capture facility. Acrobat may be busy or waiting for input.”
This is currently the trial version of Acrobat, and perhaps the error will go away when I register a serial number.
Does the “Create PDF from web page” option in acrobat run the scripts/css in the html file and then create the pdf?
[Munish - Yes, it does. - Sanjoy]
I recently purchased Adobe Pro V9. Pages that I was able to completely capture in Acrobat Pro 8 no longer work properly in Pro 9. Is there some setting that needs to be changed or is there perhaps some problem in the software. It keeps saying “Web Captue operation you have requested failed because of an error”. I’ve tried talking with customer support and so far have gotten no answer regarding this issue.
I would appreciate hearing your comments.
Thanks
John,
Can you provide a sample link please where webcapture fails?
Thanks,
Sanjoy
Ok my web capture was running fine untiil the acrobat update came through now my web capture says “Could not access Acrobat’s Web Capture facility. Acrobat may be busy or waiting for input”.
I am running windows Vista Business with Acrobat 9pro. So what gives why does it not work now and how do I fix it?
you applied the Acrobat 9.2 patch? If not, please do so by starting Acrobat, then going to Help > Check for Updates.
I am using version 9.2 to web capture a sharepoint designer page. it seemed to be working fine, but then all of a suden it now is making everything only 2″ wide on the page, I have reveiwed the settings and they have not changed is there a known problem between sharepoint designer and adobe.
I’m using Acrobat 9.0 on Window Vista. a week ago I was able tousethe Web capture option and it was working fine. Now when I click the Convert button (Convert Web page to PDF) the PDF does not look exactly like the Web page (missing background color in the tables). Is there a solution to remedy this issue?
Hi Loran,
Can you please share the URL of the webpage you were trying to Webcapture?
Thanks,
Sanjoy
I noticed my comment got deleted, so I’m posting it again:
My original message from July 1, 2010 1:35 PM:
Hi there, I created a web page that has multiple reports on it, one after another. I’d like to render that web page to PDF and initiate a page break before each report title, but I’m finding that the CSS style page-break-before: always; isn’t being interpreted by Acrobat Pro 9 rendering engine. Is this a bug? That style is interpreted fine in other PDF rendering tools.
thats a great article!
keep doing this huge job!
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Very informative post, thanks for sharing.
Adobe Acrobat 8 Web Capture is not fucioning with Internet Exporer 9
It functioned well in IE8 or IE7
To take advantage of Acrobat 8’s web capture feature, please use a full release browser such as IE8. If you prefer to use IE9, we recommend downloading and installing the free Acrobat X Pro trial from the Adobe website (https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=acrobat_pro&loc=en) and see how it interacts with IE9. Please note, IE9 is still in beta, with all the caveats you would expect on the functionality side of a beta browser.
@Adobe Acrobat. Thank you for your info.
Thanks for the helpful post!
I am having ongoing issues with web capture on IE8 and 9 with Acrobat Pro 9.4. “could not access Acrobat’s web capture facility…” I have tried repair, there are no more updates to download and Technical support keep cutting me off! The only (temporary) solution is to uninstall and download again. Is there a permanent fix for this?
Hi Ed: we’d recommend you install the 9.5 update and if the issue persists, please post your question to the Acrobat Creating. Editing & Exporting PDF forum for more questions.
I have Acrobat 9.5.0 and keep getting “could not access Acrobat’s web capture facility” on Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
I checked for Acrobat updates and No more updates available.
what is wrong?
thanks!
Hi Roger,
Please try the following steps:
1. Launch IE and Select ‘Tools->Internet Options’.
2. Select ‘Advanced’ tab and go to the ‘Browsing’ section.
3. Make sure ‘Enable third-party browser extensions’ is checked.
4. Hit ‘Apply’, then ‘Ok’
5. Restart Internet Explorer.
Hi! This is very useful information. Thanks for sharing them.
Can I point web capture at a secure website? My bank only keeps 35 day records and I want to be able to capture the main screen as well as the links in the screen.
Hi Steve, we recommend printing pages from secure sites to the Adobe PDF printer. Acrobat’s web capture is not going to be able to log in to access secure content and may not even grab all of the ‘surface’ content if it’s being served from behind a secure system.
Want to capture our previous website for record keeping purposes. Is there a file size / page limit for Capture ?
Thanks!
Hi Pamela. There is no limit to how big your capture is, and the file size of capturing every page on your website is only limited to the space you have on your drive.
They steel my website with this shit. Thx Adobe for given this possibility to everyone! I am a happy developer now…pff