wp-pdf-archiver

Small Node.js CLI for archiving individual WordPress posts to PDF with Playwright and Chromium.

The tool loads each post URL in a real browser, extracts the main post content and comments, removes common site chrome, expands linked gallery thumbnails to their full-size image when possible, injects a print stylesheet, and saves one PDF per post.

The repo also includes a companion CLI that discovers WordPress post URLs from a root URL.

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• Playwright Chromium installed

If Chromium is not installed yet:

npx playwright install chromium

Install

npm install

Usage

Discover post URLs

Print discovered post URLs, one per line:

npx wp-post-url-scraper https://your.wordpress.blog/

Print discovered post URLs as JSON:

npx wp-post-url-scraper --format json https://your.wordpress.blog/

Force a specific discovery method:

npx wp-post-url-scraper --source sitemap https://your.wordpress.blog/

Pipe discovered URLs into the PDF archiver:

npx wp-post-url-scraper https://your.wordpress.blog/ | \
  xargs npx wp-pdf-archiver --output-dir ./pdfs

You can also run discovery through the package script:

npm run discover -- https://your.wordpress.blog/

Discover and archive from a root URL

Discover post URLs and archive them in one command:

npx wp-root-archiver --output-dir ./pdfs https://your.wordpress.blog/

Preview the discovered URLs without generating PDFs:

npx wp-root-archiver --dry-run https://your.wordpress.blog/

Archive just the first 10 discovered posts:

npx wp-root-archiver --limit 10 --output-dir ./pdfs https://your.wordpress.blog/

You can also run the combined flow through the package script:

npm run archive-root -- --output-dir ./pdfs https://your.wordpress.blog/

Archive post URLs

Archive one post into the current directory:

npx wp-pdf-archiver https://example.com/2024/05/interesting-post/

Archive several posts into ./pdfs:

npx wp-pdf-archiver \
  --output-dir ./pdfs \
  https://example.com/post-one/ \
  https://example.com/post-two/

Use a custom print stylesheet:

npx wp-pdf-archiver \
  --css ./styles/print.css \
  https://example.com/gallery-post/

Show help:

npx wp-pdf-archiver --help

You can also run it through the package script:

npm run archive -- https://example.com/post-one/

What It Preserves

• Post title
• Published date when detected
• Main post body text
• Images inside the post body
• Comment threads and nested replies

What It Removes

The CLI rebuilds the page as a print-focused document, which strips many common WordPress chrome elements:

• Navigation
• Sidebars
• Footer widget areas
• Related post blocks
• Social/share UI
• Common ad containers

Gallery Handling

When the post contains an image thumbnail wrapped in a link to a full-size image file, the tool replaces the thumbnail source with the linked image before exporting the PDF. This helps preserve galleries that would otherwise print as small thumbnails.

Notes

• WordPress themes vary, so selector heuristics are intentionally simple and inspectable.
• If a site uses unusual markup, update bin/wp-pdf-archiver.js selectors or override the CSS in styles/print.css.
• The generated filename is based on the detected post title.
• The URL scraper tries WordPress sitemaps first, then the REST posts endpoint, then the feed, then a light same-origin archive crawl.