Notion PDF Export

A tool to allow batch PDF export for free Notion users. You can export as HTML with subpages and then use this tool to convert those into PDFs.

• Download
• Usage
• Building
  • Source Code
  • Running the Project on Node
  • Compiling an Executable
  • Installing nexe
    • To Install Automatically:
    • To Install Manually:
  • Compiling Executables
    • Compile Automatically
    • Compile Manually
• Credits
  • wkhtmltopdf
  • Assets

Download

Get the latest download for Windows and macOS from the releases page:

https://github.com/ganeshh123/notion-pdf-export/releases

Download for Windows

Download for macOS

Usage

Video Guide

1. Download the tool and extract.
2. In Notion, place all the pages you wish to export into one page and click Export, choose 'HTML' and ensure 'Include Subpages' is on.
3. Extract the export to find a list of HTML files and folders for each page. Place the HTML files with folders containing images in the same folder as notion-pdf-export.exe (Windows) or notion-pdf-export (macOS).
   
4. Double click notion-pdf-export.exe (Windows) or notion-pdf-export (macOS) and wait for the process to be completed.
   
   If nothing happens, you may need to go to macOS security settings and click 'Open Anyway':
   
5. All the individual pages can be found converted into PDF Documents inside the pdfs folder.
   

Building

Source Code

• Repository: ganeshh123/notion-pdf-export
• HTTPS Clone: https://github.com/ganeshh123/notion-pdf-export.git
• SSH Clone: git@github.com:ganeshh123/notion-pdf-export.git

Running the Project on Node

1. Clone/Download the project and run the command in the project root directory:

   npm install

2. Run this command to run the script:

   node index.js

   Compiling an Executable

This is tricky. A lot of adjustments had to be made so that it can run without node.

Installing nexe

Executables are compiled with a very specific version of nexe that allows access to the filesystem, which has a tricky setup procedure.

To Install Automatically:

• Windows - Run install_nexe_win.bat as admin, will take about 5 minutes to install fully.
• macOS - Run the install_nexe_mac shell script, will take about 5 minutes to install, and you will need to enter an admin password. This sometimes doesn't seem to work properly, so might be worth doing manual install if there's problems.

To Install Manually:

1. Firstly, install the general nexe package globally:

   • Windows (in command prompt must be running as admin):

     npm install -g nexe

   • macOS (in the terminal):

     sudo npm install -g nexe

2. In the project root folder build some executables with this version of nexe to download node binaries for Windows and macOS:

   nexe . --target win32-x86-10.13.0
   nexe . -t macos-10.13.0

   This will download the binaries we need for later, delete the executables built with this for now.

3. Now we need to install a specific version of nexe that allows access to the filesystem:

   • Windows (in command prompt must be running as admin):

     npm install -g cspotcode/nexe#19a5046

   • macOS (in the terminal):

     sudo npm install -g cspotcode/nexe#19a5046

     Now we should have the correct version of nexe for building. Confirm by running:

   nexe -v

   Check that the version is 4.0.0-beta.4

Compiling Executables

Compile Automatically

• Windows (on a Windows system): Run the batch script build_win32.bat to build a Windows executable. This can be found in /dist/win32 and everything in that folder must be distributed together.
  • macOS (on a macOS system): Run the shell script build_macos to build a macOS executable. This can be found in /dist/macos and everything in that folder must be distributed together.

If you wish to compile for macOS on Windows or vice versa, you can do so using the manual method below.

Compile Manually

• To build a Windows executable, in the root directory of the project, run the command:

  nexe . --target win32-x86-10.13.0 -o ./dist/win32/notion-pdf-export.exe

  When distributing the executable notion-pdf-export.exe must be placed in a directory with the original utils folder from the source.

• To build a macOS executable, in the root directory of the project, run the command:

  nexe . -t macos-10.13.0 -o ./dist/macos/npe

  Note that this is built under the name npe due to an issue with accessing the current directory. When distributing, place the npe executable it in a directory with the following:

  • The original utils folder from the source code
  • An executable unix shell script with the following contents, with the file name of notion-pdf-export:

    #/bin/bash
    cd "$0"/..
    ./npe

    This can be obtained from mac_script.sh or found inside /dist/macos This script is needed to set the current directory before the npe executable is run.

Credits

wkhtmltopdf

This project uses wkhtmltopdf for the conversions. This brilliant tool was created by Jakob Truelsen and is now maintained by Ashish Kulkarni. Version 0.12.6 has been used, and can be downloaded here.

wkhtmltopdf is released under the LGPL-3.0 License which can be found at utils/wkhtmltopdf/LICENSE. The source code is available at the wkhtmltopdf repository.

Assets

Icon by Alex Martynov obtained from IconScout.