PDF Tech

The Benefits of HTML to PDF Conversion

by Conor Smith | November 10, 2019

With the latest release of Foxit PDF SDK, we now support HTML to PDF conversion on Windows and Mac. This enables you to turn most web-based (or web-processed) documents into PDFs. This can have a big impact on your workflows. This is especially true when matched with the industry-leading performance we offer. Read on as we look at the benefits of HTML to PDF conversion.

Quality conversion
With state-of-the-art HTML to PDF conversion, you can generate a high-quality result that accurately renders all aspects of an HTML document. Taking a look at the example below, you can see the difference in rendering between an average and top of the line solution.

Foxit HTML conversion output

Adobe HTML conversion output

PDF is a de-facto standard
PDF follows stringent guidelines in order to meet ISO standards. These guidelines ensure that your document will look the same in years to come. When it comes to meeting compliance requirements around document specifications in industries like engineering and legal, PDF and its different variations such as PDF/A and PDF/UA are a necessity. In healthcare, providers are required to meet the “legal certainty” requirement meaning that proof such as a patients’ recorded digital signature must be accessible and on record in the long-term.

Time, waste and cost savings
With command line calls for batch conversion of HTML documents to PDF, you can save a huge amount of time and labor. No longer will staff members have to do it all by hand, they can now spend time on other tasks and you also get the added benefit of saving on paper, ink and space. Go paperless!

Added features of HTML to PDF conversions
Premium SDKs that convert HTML to PDF come with some of the following benefits:

  • Retains the tags from HTML pages
  • Support for PDF/Universal Accessibility (PDF/UA) tagging
  • Setting paper size & margins
  • Rotate the document
  • Convert links
  • Set timeouts
  • Set cookie paths
  • View in single/multiple page format

All of this means you have a plethora of tools to get the most out of this file conversion for your business processes.

Simplify your PDF Development Journey

Safety and security
When you convert from HTML to PDF with a quality PDF SDK, you can be sure PDF is a file format that comes with a number of different safety benefits. Here are some of the document security features you can have after converting from HTML to PDF:

  • Password protection
  • Full encryption and decryption functions
  • Password encryption
  • Certificate-drive encryption
  • Support for standard PDF security handler (40 and 128-bit RC4)
  • 128 bit & 256-bit AES encryption
  • Set or modify security permissions

Enhanced functionality with Foxit PDF SDK
There is a multitude of additional functionality you can embed in your workflow with Foxit PDF SDK after the conversion from the web page to PDF is completed. For example, using HTML templates for your pages that are only modified by data entry from users makes building backend workflows to handle the dynamic data much easier.

With a dynamic PDF file from a web page, here are a few things you can do with our solution:

  • Dynamically add bookmarks using the PDF tags
  • Add markups, custom stamps, signatures
  • Programmatically add form fields into marked coordinates based on objects such as text and images
  • Extract text from the PDF
  • Redact parts of the PDF before final rendering
  • Convert to PDF/A
  • Optimize the file to reduce size
  • And much more!

Take a look at how simple the code is below to get you started with HTML to PDF conversion with Foxit PDF SDK:

C++:

foxit::addon::conversion::HTML2PDFSettingData pdf_setting_data; 
pdf_setting_data.is_to_page_scale = true; 
pdf_setting_data.is_convert_link = true; 
pdf_setting_data.is_generate_tag = true; 
pdf_setting_data.rotate_degrees = foxit::common::e_Rotation0; 
pdf_setting_data.page_height = 640; 
pdf_setting_data.page_width = 900; 
pdf_setting_data.page_mode = foxit::addon::conversion::HTML2PDFSettingData::e_PageModeSinglePage; 
... 
foxit::addon::conversion::Convert::FromHTML(url_or_html, engine_path, cookies_path, pdf_setting_data, output_path, time_out);

Java:

com.foxit.sdk.addon.conversion.HTML2PDFSettingData pdf_setting_data=new com.foxit.sdk.addon.conversion.HTML2PDFSettingData(); 
pdf_setting_data.setIs_to_page_scale(true); 
pdf_setting_data.setIs_convert_link(true); 
pdf_setting_data.setIs_generate_tag(true); 
pdf_setting_data.setRotate_degrees(0); 
pdf_setting_data.setPage_width(900); 
pdf_setting_data.setPage_height(640); 
pdf_setting_data.setPage_mode(HTML2PDFSettingData.e_PageModeSinglePage); 
... 
com.foxit.sdk.addon.conversion.Convert.fromHTML(url_or_html, engine_path, cookies_path, pdf_setting_data, output_pdf_path, timeout);

C#:

foxit.addon.conversion.HTML2PDFSettingData pdf_setting_data = new foxit.addon.conversion.HTML2PDFSettingData(); 
pdf_setting_data.is_to_page_scale = true; 
pdf_setting_data.is_convert_link = true; 
pdf_setting_data.is_generate_tag = true; 
pdf_setting_data.rotate_degrees = 0; 
pdf_setting_data.page_height = 640; 
pdf_setting_data.page_width = 900; 
pdf_setting_data.page_mode = foxit.addon.conversion.HTML2PDFSettingData.HTML2PDFPageMode.e_PageModeSinglePage; 
... 
foxit.addon.conversion.Convert.FromHTML(url_or_html, engine_path, cookies_path, pdf_setting_data, output_path, time_out);

Objective-C:

FSHTML2PDFSettingData *pdf_setting_data=[FSHTML2PDFSettingData new]; 
pdf_setting_data.is_to_page_scale = true; 
pdf_setting_data.is_convert_link = true; 
pdf_setting_data.is_generate_tag = true; 
pdf_setting_data.rotate_degrees = 0; 
pdf_setting_data.page_height = 640; 
pdf_setting_data.page_width = 900; 
pdf_setting_data.page_mode = FSHTML2PDFSettingDataPageModeSinglePage; 
... 
[FSConvert fromHTML:url_or_html engine_path:engine_path cookies_path:cookies_path setting_data:pdf_setting_data saved_pdf_path:output_file_path timeout:time_out];

We’re just getting started with our HTML to PDF conversion addon. We intend on rolling out the addon for more platforms with more features with every update. Get in touch with us below today to learn more about what our PDF SDK can do for you.