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Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

support.mozilla.org

31–40 of 117 posts

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#31

Cool feature, although I note with some irony that once I have the PDF downloaded, I still have to then use Google's Drive PDF reader or some other tool to open it. Maybe work on a full stack PDF renderer like the desktop version has, Mozilla?

They already have a pdf reader they could add with ease https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js

I don't know what their priorities are but this is the extension I use on firefox mobile so that it can do what safari has been able to do since like ios 3 (open pdf's in the browser). You have to add it to a custom addon collection, which I think you can only enable in beta or nightly: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/android-pdf-j...

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#32
OT: i really want to use Firefox on Android, except the scrolling performance really sucks and always has, with every device, every FF version, and every Android version. it is so goddamn janky compared to Chrome and Opera (and i assume other Blink-based browsers). i'm on Android 13 and a top-spec Zenfone 9, so it should be a complete non-issue; it's pretty crazy how bad it still is after all this time :(

unfortunately it's not a minor UX annoyance that you can get used to or simply ignore; it permeates and taints every interaction.

does anyone else have this experience?

EDIT: opened about:support and everything looks fine (webrender, hw accel, hw compositor). interestingly, scrolling the long about:support page is largely jank-free.

EDIT2: went into settings and disabled address-bar hiding on scroll, which seems to have helped quite a bit for web content.

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#33

Nice feature but what is the use case for saving to PDF? If you want to save a web page for later offline reading then epub would be both much easier to implement and more useful given that it retains ability to reflow to fit different screen sizes. Are there good reasons to prefer a non-reflowable format?

I suspect that PDF is simply a more popular format.

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#34

OT: i really want to use Firefox on Android, except the scrolling performance really sucks and always has, with every device, every FF version, and every Android version. it is so goddamn janky compared to Chrome and Opera (and i assume other Blink-based browsers). i'm on Android 13 and a top-spec Zenfone 9, so it should be a complete non-issue; it's pretty crazy how bad it still is after all this time :( unfortunate…

I've been use Firefox for Android on 12 (and 11 before that) just fine, maybe an Android 13 thing? I can't remember the last time I used Chrome, I used Kiwi & Yandex at some points in the past and didn't notice any significant difference). If you are talking about smoothness, it's possible that I missed it, not caring much, but I've definitely never noticed it being so bad it becomes an usability issue.

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#35
post #12
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ublock origin and background video fix addons are great

Kiwi Browser has all of these + Chrome engine not causing issues on pages

> Chrome engine not causing issues on pages

is that a theoretical issue because I've never had any problem with page rendering in Firefox, it's been a major for a long time.

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#37

Cool feature, although I note with some irony that once I have the PDF downloaded, I still have to then use Google's Drive PDF reader or some other tool to open it. Maybe work on a full stack PDF renderer like the desktop version has, Mozilla?

This is in the works. It's the same codebase as the desktop version, which is written in js.

I've tested it on low end Android phones from 2017, it works well, when compared to the native offering, and also on modern high end phones, it also works well of course.

What's missing is mobile specific UX, such as pinch-to-zoom, and UX/UI refinements, so it's nice to use.

It has form support, annotations and other goodies like the desktop version as well, which I find very useful.

about:config in Firefox for Android Nightly,pdfjs.disabled to false to give it a go.

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#38

OT: i really want to use Firefox on Android, except the scrolling performance really sucks and always has, with every device, every FF version, and every Android version. it is so goddamn janky compared to Chrome and Opera (and i assume other Blink-based browsers). i'm on Android 13 and a top-spec Zenfone 9, so it should be a complete non-issue; it's pretty crazy how bad it still is after all this time :( unfortunate…

I always used ff on android and never had any scrolling issue. I can't even understand how could that be. I'm using a Samsung s10e with a very bad exynos cpu.

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#39
post #5

Wait I just used this; didn't realize it was new.

It was a feature for years and years. I'm fairly certain I used "print to pdf" fairly often on my very first android phone way back in (2008?)

Yes. It was removed for a while. Now it's back.

Re: Save web pages as PDF in Firefox for Android

#40
post #34

OT: i really want to use Firefox on Android, except the scrolling performance really sucks and always has, with every device, every FF version, and every Android version. it is so goddamn janky compared to Chrome and Opera (and i assume other Blink-based browsers). i'm on Android 13 and a top-spec Zenfone 9, so it should be a complete non-issue; it's pretty crazy how bad it still is after all this time :( unfortunate…

I've been use Firefox for Android on 12 (and 11 before that) just fine, maybe an Android 13 thing? I can't remember the last time I used Chrome, I used Kiwi & Yandex at some points in the past and didn't notice any significant difference). If you are talking about smoothness, it's possible that I missed it, not caring much, but I've definitely never noticed it being so bad it becomes an usability issue.

> If you are talking about smoothness

yes. in 2022 on a top-spec phone and latest OS, scrolling of a static google results page or hacker news thread should not stutter. doesn't seem like an unreasonable ask, imo.

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