html2ps, gnome-web-photo, etc.

[Peter Flynn]

I wonder if any of you have used html2ps, gnome-web-photo, or any
other means of converting HTML pages to images which could thereafter
be included in a PDF file. I have several hundred such pages which
ought to be converted. By and large they are pretty simple and do not
themselves contain images. (The pages are mostly query screens
and the reports which are produced by running the queries.) I am
interested in alternatives to firing up a graphics editor and scraping
each screen by hand, which given the number of pages will be a very
tedious undertaking. The documentation is currently being
produced on a Linux machine and I would like to keep work on it
there if possible, hence excursions to Windows programs are not
desirable although not completely out of the question. The ideal
would be a GUI-free command-line program.

Netscape used to have a commandline option something along the lines of

$ netscape -print -exit <uri>

which when run *without* a GUI present would print the page to a PS
file and then exit. It was then trivial to snip off pages >1 and turn
the result into an image format.

But I have no idea if this technique still exists. Firefox would do
well to implement it if it's been dropped...

///Peter

[a***@gmail.com]

Post by Peter Flynn

I wonder if any of you have used html2ps, gnome-web-photo, or any
other means of converting HTML pages to images which could thereafter
be included in a PDF file. I have several hundred such pages which
ought to be converted. By and large they are pretty simple and do not
themselves contain images. (The pages are mostly query screens
and the reports which are produced by running the queries.) I am
interested in alternatives to firing up a graphics editor and scraping
each screen by hand, which given the number of pages will be a very
tedious undertaking. The documentation is currently being
produced on a Linux machine and I would like to keep work on it
there if possible, hence excursions to Windows programs are not
desirable although not completely out of the question. The ideal
would be a GUI-free command-line program.

Netscape used to have a commandline option something along the lines of
$ netscape -print -exit <uri>
which when run *without* a GUI present would print the page to a PS
file and then exit. It was then trivial to snip off pages >1 and turn
the result into an image format.
But I have no idea if this technique still exists. Firefox would do
well to implement it if it's been dropped...
///Peter
--
Crossposted additionally to comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc and
netscape.public.mozilla.browser

Discussions in Mozilla-related newsgroups and mailing lists I
have read indicated that this function no longer exists, and I
have not tried it. Some called for its revival, but the
appearance of gnome-web-photo was held by others to have
answered the need. My problem with gnome-web-photo is
that the Linux system I am working with may not have the
necessary components, and I do not have administrative
privileges or even very ready access to the administrators.