I am reblogging this post from the very generous and talented Mike Nelson. He prepared a PDF copy of my blog (WordPress.com) which I greatly appreciated. I had tried to do this myself using other methods but never found a suitable result. Mike’s solution worked very well for me. If interested, I encourage you to give it a try!
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Published by Retirement Reflections
Prior to retirement, I lived and worked in Beijing China for fourteen years (Middle School Principal/Deputy Director at The Western Academy of Beijing). Leaving international life behind, my husband and I retired to Vancouver Island in June 2015. To document both this transition and our new adventures, ‘Retirement Reflections’ was born. I hope that you enjoy reading these reflections, and will be willing to share your own.
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Retirement Reflections 
Looks like a cool tool…but will paper survive the transition, either?
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Good question, Nancy. The printed copy is very nice to have and at least helps to hedge my bet! 🙂
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Whoa! This is great, Donna. Thanks for sharing!
Deb
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Thanks, Deb – I found Mike’s solution to be incredibly helpful. I look forward to seeing you soon!
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Have you used it yet Donna?
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Hi, Dee – I didn’t have to because Mike did it for me. According to him, it was easy to do and the result that he gave to me was just what I was hoping for!
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Oh ok 🙂
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🙂
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Thanks Donna. This is something I’m going to make a note of and come back to at some point. I have been printing my posts manually up to now, but I’m a lot behind. This is a great solution.
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Hi, Joanne – A few months back, I attempted the process of printing my posts manually. As I started this late in the game, it was an overwhelming process that guzzled a large quantity of ink (I have an archaic printer). Mike’s solution has been perfect for me. Hopefully, it works well for you too. Thank you for reading and commenting. I greatly appreciate it.
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My printer hoovers ink too 😕 I think I’ve been single-handedly keeping Staples in business.
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Me too! I should have bought shares! 🙂
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Hi Donna! So it sounds like you’re making progress! Good for you. Will we be seeing it published in 2019? Let me know if I can help! ~Kathy
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Thanks, Kathy – The printed version is only for me. I don’t have any intentions of publishing beyond my single print copy. Still, it is nice to have! 🙂
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You know the right people, Donna! Thanks for letting us know about the plug-in and the solution. I’d love to print my old blog one day (and my Roaming About one), but the amount of photos and posts – 8 years for the first blog and 3 years the second one – is way too staggering! I will postmark the post, though, just in case I have $1000 budget for paper and ink.
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11 years of blog posts does add up. 🙂 The good thing is that you can also print off sections (when deserved), and reduce or eliminate photos, which definitely saves on ink!
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Hi Liesbet, ya it’s still daunting to actually print your entire blog. Most web browsers also allow you to easily print to pdf (eg google chrome, or Firefox with an extension), and creating PDF copies and backing them up in a variety of places (eg a spare hard drive, google drive, or your email inbox) is another “good bet” that it will be preserved for a long time.
Plus, like Donna said, it might be a more reasonable size if you use the options to remove images and use the smallest font.
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What a great solution to what is probably a common issue for many bloggers. I love that it is possible to develop a plug-in and share it with the community (not that I’d ever do it, but I’m glad tech-savvy people can… and us, non-tech-savvy people can take advantage of their smarts). BTW, I noticed that I’m no longer included on your “Also on WordPress” sidebar… have I fallen off your friends list? 🙂
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Aarrgghhhh! I hadn’t noticed that about the ‘Also on WordPress’ feature. Upon further investigation, this quick and easy widget (provided by WordPress), only displays the last 50 WordPress sites followed. Since you were the very first WP site that I followed, you were the first that they left off. Easily solved — you are now back on the role. Sorry about that! 😳
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Very useful to know about, thank you.
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My pleasure, Anabel! When I first began to try to print off my blog, I thought that it would be easy. Not so — until now! I hope that it’s helpful to you too.
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Thanks for sharing this Donna. I need all the techie advice I can get. I’m going to give it a try. #MLSTL Shared on SM
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Thanks, Jennifer. When you give it a try, please let Mike know your thoughts. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to give him a shout. As I mentioned, he’s a very generous guy!
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What an interesting idea, not one I had thought about, but I like it. Pinning this, thanks.
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Hi, Jan – Thanks for reading, commenting and pinning. It is greatly appreciated!
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That is so cool, Donna! I’d love to have a printed copy of my blog. Thanks for sharing!
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Hi, Jill – I now have my blog, a PDF version and a print version. Somehow that gives me extra reassurance. Hopefully this is helpful for you too!
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That’s a lovely photo of you Donna! And the post is very interesting, I’ll have to look into it further but it sounds a great idea. Does it only work on wordpress.org blogs do you know? #mlstl
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Hi, Debbie – Yes, this is a plugin for WordPress.org. It can also be used on WordPress.com. If you have any questions, feel free to let Mike know in the comments. As he is currently looking for feedback, he would be very happy to answer them.
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Hi Donna, I was just going to ask if this can be used on WP dot com. I may give it a try…I would store it as a PDF for now then take it to a professional print-house (may be cheaper than killing my own ink!)
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Hi, Terri – Thanks for commenting. Here’s the information that Mike included for WP.com users: “WordPress.com users can print their blog for free without even needing to install the plugin (this is partially done, contact me if you’d like to try it out early). So, if you would like to try it soon, just give Mike a shout. I’m sure that he would be happy to help.
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This is such a great idea, Donna because there are times I would like to have a copy of what I’ve written in my blog as a keepsake. I will be checking out the plug-in and thank you for sharing with us at #MLSTL. So many things to keep learning about in the blogging world isn’t there? Have a beautiful week, my friend. xx
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Hi, Sue – I agree that it is nice to have a pdf/print copy because…you just never know! This backup is a nice reassurance for me. When you check out the plugin, please let me know what you think.
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What a great idea – It would be lovely to have such an easy way to preserve memories from your blogging Donna. Blogger doesn’t have this, and I don’t really want mine in PDF at this stage – it does have the facility to download all our blog content – but I’m happy to leave it in cyberspace for now.
Thanks for linking with us at MLSTL and I’ve shared on my SM 🙂
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Hi, Leanne – Thanks for sharing this on your SM. I greatly appreciate it. Since I am currently unsure how long I will blog, it is reassuring to have a printed version. Richard was happy with this too as it preserves many of our family memories and our memories together.
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Funny that you should write about printing off our blogs. I have been thinking of doing it for quite a while. Need to put it on my to do list!! Thanks for the reminder #mlstl
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Hi, Suzanne – I had tried to get my blog ready for printing a couple of months back…but kept putting it in the ‘Too Hard Basket’. Mike’s solution was perfect for me. I hope that it works for you too!
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Thanks Donna, I’m sure it will once I action it. A good activity for winter time!
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I love this idea! It’s exactly what I’ve been thinking of recently. Currently I keep a copy of all my posts in Word, but this is even better! Thank you for sharing it 🙂
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Hi, Cheryl – My pleasure! If you try it, please give Mike any feedback that you have. I know that he would be happy to hear it.
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I’m going to give this a try, Donna. I think it is a good idea to have a paper copy in a world of changing technology. I wonder if the photos print, too? That would be an ink guzzler.
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Hi, Molly – I’m glad to hear that you will give this a try. Please let me know what you think once you’ve tried it. And don’t hesitate to ask Mike any questions. (I’m sure that he loves that I keep writing this…but he did ask for feedback). 🙂 I believe that you can print with or without photos.
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I used to print out all my posts and keep them in binders, but this app seems easier. Of course, I don’t know if I want my story to be around in 100 years. Knowing that future generations might read my blog seems like I’m adding pressure to how I write now. Just saying… 🤔
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Good point, Ally! It would be fun to be a fly on the wall one-hundred years from now, and listen to the thoughts of our descendants reading our blogs.
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That’s a pretty cool looking app/gizmo/whatchmacallit, Donna. I’ll let you know if I try it. Nice pic of you! – Marty
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Thanks, Marty – I greatly appreciate you stopping by. (And Richard, who is sitting near me, says the cover photo is a direct result of his skill in photography)! 🙂
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I have to say I have never thought of printing or preserving our blog. This gives me food for thought.
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Hi, Victoria – Thank you for reading and commenting. I agree that this pdf/print solution does give great food for thought. I was very happy with the end result.
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I’m a big fan of analog….I keep a handwritten planner/journal and read books not nooks. SO this is right up my alley. Thanks for the sharing. I’m pinning to share!
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I’m a book vs nook gal, too! Thanks so much for commenting and sharing!
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What a fabulous idea…I’m going to investigate.
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Hi, Jo – I agree that this is a great idea. My copy has given me much extra reassurance.
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Very interesting, Donna. I’ve been printing my blogs out one at a time for my mother, who doesn’t own a computer, but does like to read the blog. She’s saving them in a notebook, so I guess I do have one copy. This plugin is definitely interesting, though. #MLSTL
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Hi, Christie – This must be a Mom-thing. My Mom prefers to read my blog in print copy as well! 🙂
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Wow, I hadn’t thought about what would happen to my blog…whenever…I quit, there’s no such thing as blogs and WordPress, etc.! Thank you for sharing this plug-in. Hopefully it is easy to upload because I get very nervous trying to figure out where to add the code to the HTML in order to get plug-ins to work. Will investigate. I had several school/library blogs that I enjoyed putting together but have not done anything with since I retired. I would be kind of cool to be able to save them…for posterity?
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Hi, Leslie – Thank you for reading and commenting. Definitely give Mike a shout if you have any questions. As he is currently looking for feedback (and is an all around nice guy) I know that he would be very happy to help!
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FYI you can now also use https://deadeasyfamilyhistory.org/print-my-blog/ to print your WordPress blog (self-hosted or on WordPress.com).
It actually uses the Print My Blog plugin behind the scenes. So it’s worth a try if you can’t install the plugin.
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Thanks, Mike – This is very helpful!
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I would like to be able to print my blog content (or even save it as a PDF), but Leanne has already mentioned, you can’t do this with Blogger. (Although I think I could export it page by page to PDF, but that would be extremely tedious, and I’d be stuck with the having the headers and sidebars too rather than just the content.)
Jude
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Hi, Jude – I just went over to your ‘Beaches’ post and tried cutting and pasting it into a PDF. That seemed to work well and included your post photos but not the blogger header or sidebar. Mike may have a more technical or streamlined solution. In the meantime, this low-tech method might work.
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