Print Friendly & PDF for Chrome — Best Settings for High-Quality Prints

Print Friendly & PDF for Chrome: Tips to Remove Ads and ImagesWhen you want a clean, readable copy of a webpage—whether for research, sharing, or offline reading—ads, banners, and large images can be distracting and wasteful of paper and storage. Print Friendly & PDF for Chrome is a popular extension designed to strip away clutter and produce neat, printable pages or compact PDFs. This article explains how to use the extension effectively, explores its settings and features, offers step‑by‑step tips for removing ads and images, and gives practical workflow suggestions for different needs.

What Print Friendly & PDF for Chrome does (and what it doesn’t)

Print Friendly & PDF focuses on converting webpages into cleaner printouts or downloadable PDFs by:

• Removing ads, navigation, and other non‑essential elements automatically.
• Letting you delete specific text blocks or images before saving or printing.
• Offering adjustable font size, image size, and an option to remove images entirely.
• Creating optimized PDFs that reduce file size compared to full‑page screenshots or “Save as PDF” from the browser.

It does not:

• Guarantee removal of every single ad if an ad is embedded inline with the main content HTML.
• Permanently change the original webpage—edits are only applied to the saved/printed copy.

Installing and opening the extension

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store and install “Print Friendly & PDF”.
2. After installation, the extension icon appears in the toolbar. Pin it for easier access.
3. Open any webpage you want to save or print and click the extension icon. The extension generates a cleaned preview of the page.

Basic interface overview

• Top toolbar: options to print, save as PDF, email, and go back to the original page.
• Left panel (or inline controls): buttons to remove individual elements—text blocks and images show a small “delete” icon when you hover over them.
• Settings: controls for font size, image size, and whether images should be included at all.

Tips to remove ads and images effectively

1. Use the automatic clean view first
   Click the extension icon—Print Friendly & PDF’s algorithm removes many common ad elements and navigation automatically. This often yields a usable result without extra work.

2. Manually delete stubborn elements
   Hover over an ad, banner, or unwanted section; a small delete (trash) icon appears. Click it to remove that block. Repeat for multiple sections. Text and image blocks are treated separately, so you may need to remove an adjacent image and its caption individually.

3. Remove images entirely
   Use the “Images” toggle or “Remove all images” control in the extension’s toolbar to strip every image from the page in one click. This is useful when you only need the text or want the smallest possible PDF.

4. Reduce image size instead of removing
   If some images are useful (e.g., diagrams), reduce the global image size setting to keep them but shrink their footprint.

5. Adjust font size for layout control
   Increasing or decreasing font size can change how text wraps and may move elements into different blocks, making some previously hard‑to‑select ads easier to remove.

6. Use the browser’s reader mode first (when available)
   Some pages work well with Chrome’s built‑in Reader Mode (enable via chrome://flags if not visible). Activating Reader Mode before Print Friendly can produce a simpler DOM for the extension to process, reducing leftover clutter.

7. Combine with adblockers cautiously
   An adblocker can pre‑remove many ads, which makes Print Friendly’s job easier. However, some adblockers also hide class names or restructure the DOM, which might confuse the extension’s element detection. Test both together to find the best result.

8. Reorder or hide page elements via developer tools (advanced)
   For stubborn cases, use Chrome DevTools (F12) to temporarily hide or remove elements with CSS (display:none) before invoking Print Friendly. This is advanced and usually unnecessary.

Workflow examples

• Research notes (text only): Click extension → Remove all images → Increase font size slightly → Save as PDF.
• Archiving an article with essential diagrams: Click extension → Remove large decorative images but keep diagrams → Reduce image size → Save as PDF.
• Printing handouts: Click extension → Remove ads and sidebars manually → Set image size to small → Print.

PDF optimization and file size tips

• Remove images or set image size to small for significantly smaller PDFs.
• Use the extension’s “PDF” option rather than Chrome’s “Save as PDF” to benefit from its cleaning and compression.
• If you need further compression, run the saved PDF through a PDF optimizer tool or export with lower DPI settings in your PDF viewer.

Limitations and when it might fail

• Some sites use scripts that dynamically load content; the extension may not catch elements that appear after the initial render. Reload the page and reopen the extension after content fully loads.
• Inline ads or sponsored content embedded inside the main article text can be hard to remove without deleting surrounding useful text.
• Paywalled or heavily gated content may be partially accessible; Print Friendly cannot bypass paywalls.

Privacy and security considerations

The extension processes page content locally in your browser when building the printable view. However, check the extension’s permissions and privacy policy—extensions may request access to browsing data for features like saving to the cloud or emailing PDFs. Avoid giving extra permissions you don’t need.

Troubleshooting quick checklist

• If elements still appear: reload page → wait for full load → click extension.
• If delete icons don’t show: try zooming the page out slightly or using Reader Mode first.
• If PDF looks wrong: toggle images off, adjust font size, or use “Save as PDF” from the Print dialog as a fallback.

Alternatives and complementary tools

• Browser built‑in Reader Mode (when available) provides a quick text‑only view.
• Adblockers and content blockers reduce clutter before printing.
• Dedicated clipping tools (Pocket, Evernote) for long‑term archiving with different formatting.

Print Friendly & PDF for Chrome is a practical, user‑friendly tool to produce tidy, ad‑free printouts and PDFs. With a few clicks—automatic cleaning, manual deletions, and image controls—you can tailor webpage exports for reading, sharing, or printing while saving ink and file space.