Save to PDF or Export as PDF

pottski

Is there any chance that Lectora Online will offer the ability to save or export all the pages in a title to PDF? Right now there seems to be no easy way to create a PDF from a course without taking screenshots from the published version or printing to PDF from the published version. I tried printing to PDF from Lectora Online itself, but could not get the background image to print even with the "print background" and "print images" boxes checked in my browsers (tried in Firefox and Safari). We have a lot of clients ask for PDF versions of our courses, and creating those files has become a very time-consuming process.



I would like to see something that would allow me to export what I would see in the preview mode as a PDF while still maintaining the ability to copy and paste text out of that new file. Is there any chance of that feature making the update list sometime soon?



Thanks,



Matt Potter

wheels

We are currently focused on the implementation of the Lectora v11 interface in Lectora Online. We have this in our product backlog and Product Management is responsible for the priority. This is a common request as many courses have to go through an approval process. We understand the use case.



Are there any more specifics about how this PDF print would work? For example, I want it to print what the course looks like in preview mode vs. edit mode; I want an option to specify only part of a course; etc.



Thank you for contributing!

mjr

I am searching for info on creating a pdf as well- I see that this thread is quite old, so am wondering if anything has been updated for Lectora v11 since this last post? In addition to SMEs wanting the course in pdf format for editing/updating, we also need to be able to provide audit groups with pdfs to show exactly what the course contained (so exactly what the final content looks like).



I have been able to export the course to Word and then create a pdf using Acrobat Pro; but the pages display in a very random order so it is not easy getting it to match the course (i.e. so instead of displaying page 1, page 2, page 3 it will display page 27, page 4, page 56... no rhyme or reason that I can figure out) I can also publish to html and create a pdf that way as well- but have the same paging issue. If anyone has tips on how to set up your course pages to "force" them into numeric order or easily decipher the page naming conventions used by Lectora, I would be deeply appreciative.



Thanks Much-

elearnchick

@Mjr 50743 wrote:

If anyone has tips on how to set up your course pages to "force" them into numeric order or easily decipher the page naming conventions used by Lectora, I would be deeply appreciative.



Thanks Much-

I use the painfully tedious method of renaming each pdf to its associated page name, referenced from the print dialog or by count depending on where I am in the module.



I first capture screen shots of each page, then save each as a pdf (landscape and size to 210% to fill the page), then combine the files into one pdf with Acrobat. It is quite painful but it's my only option to capture the actual page and section titles. Btw: for the interactive pages, I capture each incarnation of the page as it changes through the interaction. So if I have a page with four clickable objects that display different content for each, I capture the screen after each object has been clicked. It's a terrible "use" of my time but has to be done.



Maybe someone still has a better solution.

mjr

Thanks for your input, that sounds painful as well!

Maybe someone from Trivantis will enlighten us with an easier way!

I know that once the files are in html format, it is pretty straighforward to create a pdf using Acrobat Pro, however, when the html filenames are so seemingly random, it makes it challenging (or mundanely tedious) to sort them into the correct order.

TCW15

There could have been an update in Lectora since 2013 that added this feature to print to PDF. Recently shared with me, you can also create a PDF by selecting the Print option and printing as Adobe PDF.

v01d

The Fireshot extension for Firefox/Chrome allows you press a single keyboard shortcut to capture a screenshot of the visible area of the browser window.

To create PDFs of my courses I:

1. Publish the course to HTML and run locally on my PC
   
2. Whip through the course and capture screenshots with Fireshot
   
3. Import screenshots into Powerpoint as a "photo album" (places all screenshots at largest possible size, in correct slide order)
   
4. Save as PDF
   

https://getfireshot.com/

It's $40 USD for a lifetime license, but the paid version allows you to change the capture shortcut from the RSI-inducing CTRL + SHIFT + Y. It usually takes about 45 minutes for me to capture and create a PDF of 200 screenshots.