14 DAY TRIAL // The ability to print any and all documents that you want to save as PDF files has always been a very practical way to save snapshots. It is particularly good in the case of very long documents that stretch over many screens that would otherwise have to be captured via multiple screenshots. Not only is printing as PDF extremely easy and always accessible, but the resulting files can be opened anywhere and edited at a later date. Moreover this process will actually preserve text as text, which can be copied and pasted into text editing applications at any time. In most cases, printing as PDF works perfectly and you get an exact copy of the document you were looking at; however, when it comes to web pages, the results are not always as good. Complex web sites that are made of very many little pieces may end up with missing elements and while the content will be saved, the overall look of the initial document is compromised. Fortunately, you can overcome this using a little plug-in for Safari called Red Snapper.
What it does Red Snapper is a plug-in for Safari that is designed to let you save a snapshot of the web page you are currently viewing. It can output to various image file formats but also to PDF. Unlike the default print to PDF option in OS X, Red Snapper will actually give you a perfect copy of the web site, in every way.
Working with it After installing Red Snapper and restarting Safari, you will notice a new item in the toolbar. This is the Red Snapper button that you need to press in order to save a snapshot of the current page. The plug-in can be used on absolutely any web page and will work fine with even the most complex ones. There are no settings of any sort for Red Snapper, other than customizing the Safari toolbar to drag the button to a more desirable location.
To save a snapshot of a page, all you have to do is click the Red Snapper button, select the format you want to save in, and where to save the file. It is just as simple as printing to PDF. Unlike the print option, you also have the ability to resize the snapshot as you save it, which is done by selecting the desired width of the resulting file. This is perfect as you can skip external editing in order to make large files smaller. Additionally, in the case of image file formats that support it, you can choose the compression quality. This can also make a huge difference in the size of the saved files. A JPEG at 100% quality will require 3.6 MB of disk space while the same site at only 50% quality will only take up 664KB and it will still be more than adequate for viewing purposes. PDF files saved with Red Snapper tend, on average, to be 25% to 33% bigger than those saved via printing, but they will also look much better as they will retain all original formatting.
No breaks One of the more annoying things that happens when you print to PDF is that the document gets broken up into page sized chunks. While this might not be an issue with other kinds of documents, web pages, especially those that lay out the content across multiple columns, become difficult to read when broken up.
Red Snapper does not break up the document at all, leaving it intact and looking exactly the same as the original was. This is perfect for the more complex sites, but it can be quite a bother in the case of those long pages that are nothing but a huge chunk of text. Unfortunately, you cannot choose whether or not you want PDFs to be broken up, but should you really need it, there is always the option to simply use the print to PDF option instead of Red Snapper for that particular page.
Formats formats Red Snapper can save web pages in a wide variety of image file formats and PDF. It supports all the most common formats, both lossy and lossless and you can change the compression quality on the fly before saving the page. It also supports saving as PSD files, but will output everything as one single huge layer instead of breaking up the various elements into their own layers.
Compression for the lossy formats is good, as it most likely uses the Core Graphics technology built into OS X for all the dirty work and even the worst quality JPEGs look decent enough for reading purposes.
The Good Saves web sites perfectly, retaining all content and formatting for an exact copy, regardless of what format you are saving to. Works perfectly with both image file formats and PDF files and gives you the option to resize the page on the fly as well as tweak the compression ratio.
The Bad The only thing that comes close to being bad about this program is that sometimes it really is useful to have the resulting PDF broken up into pages, which it won't do.
The Truth You can save web pages as PDF files without any additional software, so it might seem like this program is not worth it. However, the difference in output is huge and the resulting files when using Red Snapper will always look exactly like the page you were saving, unlike the default option.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
