Adding a PDF button

Having users create a PDF of your website requires them to navigate to the print page and File > Print > Save as PDF (see export to PDF). You can make downloading a PDF version of your website even easier for your users by including a 'PDF' button on every page (like the one in the right corner of this page 👆).

MkDocs supports theme extension, an easy way to override parts of a theme. That will allow you to add a button to the top of every page.

This plugin adds to the context a page.url_to_print_page which contains the relative link from a page to the print page. You can use page.url_to_print_page when customizing a theme:

Info

While it might be easier for your users, using this option means you need to re-create the PDF everytime you make a change to your website.

If you use this option and you are using version control like git, you might want to also gitignore the PDF file.

Adding a PDF button to mkdocs-material theme

In the mkdocs-material theme you can create an override for main.html (see customization).

Example:

mkdocs.yml

theme:
name: material
custom_dir: docs/overrides

plugins:
    - print-site:
        path_to_pdf: "assets/the_name_of_your_file.pdf"

docs/overrides/main.html

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block content %}

{% if page.url_to_pdf %}
    <a href="{{ page.url_to_pdf }}" title="Site PDF" class="md-content__button md-icon">
        {% include ".icons/material/file-pdf-box.svg" %}
    </a>
{% endif %}

{{ super() }}
{% endblock content %}

Adding a print button to mkdocs theme

You can also customize the base mkdocs theme, by overriding main.html.

Example:

mkdocs.yml

theme:
    name: mkdocs
    custom_dir: docs/overrides

plugins:
    - print-site:
        path_to_pdf: "assets/the_name_of_your_file.pdf"

docs/overrides/main.html

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block repo %}
    {% if page.url_to_pdf %}
        <li class="nav-item">
            <a href="{{ page.url_to_pdf }}" title="Site PDF" class="nav-link">
                <i class="fas fa-file-pdf"></i> PDF
            </a>
        </li>
    {% endif %}

{{ super() }}
{% endblock repo %}