Something you might want to learn is how to copy an entire web page. You may wish to copy it so you can make a duplicate and edit it as you see fit, at least if it is your own page. Of course, you don’t want to copy and paste someone else’s work and claim it as your own because that comes with its own set of problems.

However, there are many reasons why you might want to copy an entire web page, maybe just to analyze it on your own time. On a side note, if you are working on your own website and creating a copy of a page within WordPress, this article on how to duplicate a WordPress page is beneficial. WordPress or not, today, we want to discuss how to copy an entire webpage.

Copying a Web Page: Various Methods

There are various methods for copying an entire web page, and the way you choose really depends on what your needs are, what the purpose of doing so is, and what the final result should look like. Let’s look at the different methods of copying webpages.

A Simple Copy and Paste Job

If you just want to copy and paste an entire web page as is, maybe to create a duplicate page in WordPress, or just to have all of the information stored on a word processer such as Microsoft Word, a copy and paste job will work. Here is how you do it.

  1. Select everything that you want to copy, which in this case is everything. You can do this by going to the upper left corner of the page, holding down the left mouse button, and then scrolling all the way down to the bottom. You can also go to your browser, select “edit,” and then click on “select all.” Another easy way to do this is to press “Ctrl-A” on your keyboard.
  2. Copy everything. You can do this by clicking on the “edit” tab in your browser and then select “copy.” You can also right-click on your mouse and select “copy,” or just hit “Ctrl-c” on your keyboard.
  3. To paste everything you have selected and copied, simply go to the location to which you want to paste the page, hit “Ctrl-v” on the keyboard, or right-click on your mouse and select “paste.”

A Word on Formatting

Something to be aware of is that you can choose to paste only the text or an entire web page and then select if you want to keep the current formatting or change it to your own format.

Printing as a PDF – Google Chrome Only

Google Chrome allows you to print out the web page in PDF format, something other browsers don’t allow. To do this, click on the wrench icon in the top right corner of Chrome, select “print,” then “PDF,” and also “save as PDF.” You will have the entire web page copied as a PDF, which you can then use. Remember that using the “advanced” tab, you can also select if you want to copy all or just a part of a page. You can go from portrait or landscape mode.

Capturing All Page Content

Another method for copying an entire web page is to capture all of a page’s content. Here, you can go to the top left of your browser and hit “file” and then “save as” (or you can just hit ctrl-s on your keyboard to save it that way).

Whether you are using Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer, you can save the page either as “web page, complete” (text, images, scripts, and more) or “web page HTML only” (text only). In Firefox, these are called “all files” and “text files.” Choose the one that suits your needs, and then save it in the appropriate location for further use.

Taking a Screenshot

Although taking a screenshot probably is not the most useful approach, you can only capture so much at once, not to mention that what you copy will be an image file, not a text file, but it is fast and easy. If using Windows, simply hit “alt-prtscn”; if you are using a Mac, hit “Command+Shift+3”. You can then paste it into a new file.

Conclusion

There are multiple ways, as you can see, to copy an entire web page. Just remember that the method you choose will depend on what your end goal is.