Selenium Chrome save as pdf change download folder

Question

I want to download a website as pdf file, it\'s working fine, but it should download the file to a specific path, instead it\'s just downloading the file to my default download

Answer 1

The download.default_directory setting is only for downloaded content. Chrome treats files saved on the page differently. To change the default folder for a printout of the page, simply set the savefile.default_directory value instead.

So the full example to print to pdf for a custom location:

import json
from selenium import webdriver

appState = {
    "recentDestinations": [
        {
            "id": "Save as PDF",
            "origin": "local",
            "account": ""
        }
    ],
    "selectedDestinationId": "Save as PDF",
    "version": 2
}

profile = {'printing.print_preview_sticky_settings.appState': json.dumps(appState),
           'savefile.default_directory': 'path/to/dir/'}

chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
chrome_options.add_experimental_option('prefs', profile)
chrome_options.add_argument('--kiosk-printing')

driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)
driver.get(url)
driver.execute_script('window.print();')

Answer 2

download.default_directory could be added not to appState but to "prefs" of add_experimental_option

like:

chrome_options.add_experimental_option("prefs", {
    'download.default_directory': 'C:\\Users\\Oli\\Google Drive',
    'download.directory_upgrade': True
})

but in your case it wouldn't help, as this option set location for 'file -> save as', and you need 'print -> save as'

As a workaround you could use --print-to-pdf argument for Chrome (no need to run Chrome Webdriver, but Chrome itself in a headless mode)

import os

path_to_file = 'C:\\Users\\Oli\\Google Drive\\'
name_of_file = '1.pdf'
page_to_open = 'http://example.com'

command_to_run = 'start chrome --headless --print-to-pdf="{0}{1}" {2}'.format(path_to_file, name_of_file, page_to_open)
print('launch:'+command_to_run)

os.popen(command_to_run)

Be careful as it's running in silent mode, no warning messages if file is not created (for example if no such directory, or no admin rights to C:\Users, or no such webpage).

And you could always test right in the command line (cmd) like:

start chrome --headless --print-to-pdf="C:\\temp\\1.pdf" http://example.com

Answer 3

One more workaround. Just save the file as is and then move and rename it as needed.

Idea of the code below: check creation time of every (pdf) file in download directory, and compare with the time now. If the time delta less than some value (let's say 15 seconds), presumably this is the right file, move/rename the file where you need.

import os
import time
import json
from selenium import webdriver

appState = {
    "recentDestinations": [
        {
            "id": "Save as PDF",
            "origin": "local"
        }
    ],
    "selectedDestinationId": "Save as PDF",
    "version": 2
}

profile = {'printing.print_preview_sticky_settings.appState': json.dumps(appState)}

download_path = r'C:\Users\Oli\Downloads' # Path where browser save files
new_path = r'C:\Users\Oli\Google Drive' # Path where to move file

chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
chrome_options.add_experimental_option('prefs', profile)
chrome_options.add_argument('--kiosk-printing')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=chrome_options)

driver.get('http://example.com/')
driver.execute_script('window.print();')

new_filename = 'new_name.pdf' # Set the name of file
timestamp_now = time.time() # time now
# Now go through the files in download directory
for (dirpath, dirnames, filenames) in os.walk(download_path):
    for filename in filenames:
        if filename.lower().endswith(('.pdf')):
            full_path = os.path.join(download_path, filename)
            timestamp_file = os.path.getmtime(full_path) # time of file creation
            # if time delta is less than 15 seconds move this file
            if (timestamp_now - timestamp_file) < 15: 
                full_new_path = os.path.join(new_path, new_filename)
                os.rename(full_path, full_new_path)
                print(full_path+' is moved to '+full_new_path)

Note: it's just an example. You need to think about all you actions. To make the code stable you might need to add some exceptions handling. Better to move this additional code to a function. And so on.