Tuesday Tips for Legal Professionals: Turning Web Pages into Court-Ready PDFs

More and more source material lives on the web: online reasons for judgment, government policies, guidelines, and regulatory pages. But when that content needs to end up in a printed court record or book, simply “print to PDF” from your browser can give you:

• Tiny, hard-to-read text

• Cropped margins

• Missing sections or broken page breaks

On top of that, the BC Court of Appeal expects PDFs to meet certain technical standards: searchable text, consistent page numbering, and the ability to combine and organize documents with tools like bookmarks and tables of contents.

This post walks through a practical workflow: how to capture a web page as a PDF that stays legible on paper and fits within the Court of Appeal’s PDF expectations.

1. Start with the best version of the web page

Before you touch “Print” or “Save as PDF,” clean up what you are capturing.

Options to use:

• Print or PDF link on the siteSome sites (including courts and governments) already offer a print-friendly or PDF version of a page. Use that if it exists. It usually has better page breaks and less clutter.

• Reader / simplified view in the browserMany browsers have a “reader” or “simplified page” view that strips menus, sidebars, ads, and cookie banners. Printing to PDF from that view often gives much better results.

• Avoid pure screenshots if possibleA full-page screenshot locks the content into an image. It will not be text-searchable and will often be blurry when printed.

Your goal at this stage is to capture only the content you need, in a clean layout, without navigation clutter.

2. Print to PDF for legibility, not just for size

When you open the browser’s Print dialog and choose “Save as PDF” or “Print to PDF,” check:

• Paper sizeSet the paper to match your court books (typically Letter in BC).

• OrientationPortrait for most narrative content; landscape only if the page truly needs it (wide tables or charts).

• ScaleAvoid scaling that makes text too small. Around 100% is often best; if you must shrink slightly to avoid clipping, confirm that body text is still comfortable to read.

• Headers and footersKeep or add useful items like the page URL and date if you want an audit trail, but avoid duplicating them later in your court book.

Do a quick preview scroll: make sure paragraphs are not chopped mid-word at page breaks and that nothing is clipped off left or right.

3. Make sure the PDF meets basic Court of Appeal expectations

The Court of Appeal’s PDF resources emphasise a few key technical points that apply across many document types:

• Searchable text (OCR)PDFs should contain readable and searchable text. Image-only PDFs (for example, from screenshots) should be run through optical character recognition (OCR) so the text layer can be searched and copied.

• True copiesThe PDF should be a true copy of the original content, whether created from a word processor or scanned from paper. Do not accidentally drop sections when printing from the web.

• Page numbering and organizationThe Court publishes instructions on adding page numbers, creating tables of contents and cover pages, and organizing bookmarks, all aimed at making multi-document “books” usable.

• PDF tools with certain capabilitiesThe Court’s systems and software checklist expects you to be using a PDF tool (for example, Adobe Acrobat Pro) that can combine documents, run OCR, add page numbers, create hyperlinks, and manage bookmarks.

In practice, after you’ve created your web-to-PDF file:

1. Run OCR if needed

   • If you created the PDF from a digital web page, it is usually already text-based.

   • If you used screenshots or scanned printouts, open the PDF in a tool like Acrobat and run OCR so the text becomes searchable.

2. Check legibility at 100%

   • Open the PDF at 100% zoom.

   • If the smallest body text is uncomfortable to read on screen, it will be worse on paper.

4. Bring the PDF into a court-book-friendly structure

Most web-derived PDFs are not going to be filed on their own. They are likely to be:

• An exhibit in an appeal record

• A document in an application book

• A policy or guideline in a book of authorities

The Court’s “Combining Multiple Documents” and other checklists describe how to turn many PDFs into a single, organized court record with title page, index, consistent page numbering, and bookmarks.

Once your web page is in PDF form:

1. Combine with other documents where appropriate

   • Use a PDF tool to merge it into the correct “book” (appeal record, authority book, etc.).

   • Keep the order consistent with the index you are using.

2. Apply sequential page numbering or Bates numbering

   • Use a single numbering sequence across the entire book, not per-source.

   • Place page numbers where your chosen completion instructions expect them (often top-centre).

3. Update the index and bookmarks

   • Add an entry for the web-derived document in your table of contents or index.

   • Create a bookmark with a clear, meaningful label (for example, “Provincial Policy – [Title] [Year]” rather than “Web printout”).

   • Consider setting the PDF to open with the bookmarks pane visible by default, as suggested by the Court’s PDF instructions.

5. Keep an eye on file size without sacrificing print quality

The Court’s e-filing materials include tools and guidance for checking the size of your PDF and reducing it when necessary, as well as limits on how large a single e-filed PDF can be.

For web-derived PDFs:

• Check size after combining

  • Large documents with many images can grow quickly when combined into a book.

  • Use the Court’s “Check the Size of your PDF” guidance and, if necessary, its “Reduce the Size of a PDF” approach.

• Reduce with care

  • Do not over-compress to the point where screenshots, fine text, or small charts become blurry.

  • If you must compress aggressively to meet an e-filing limit, keep a higher-quality master PDF for printing.

6. Quick checklist before you send for printing

For any web-to-PDF document that is heading into a court book:

• Is the content complete and free of navigation clutter?

• Is the text searchable (OCR applied if needed)?

• Is the smallest body text comfortable to read at 100% zoom?

• Are page numbers applied consistently across the full book?

• Does the index or table of contents list this document correctly?

• Is there a clear bookmark for it in the electronic version?

• Is the file size within e-filing limits, without destroying legibility?

If the answer is yes to all of these, you are usually safe to go to print.

7. Where a print shop fits in

From the printer’s side, web-derived material is easiest to work with when:

• You send the clean, web-to-PDF version, not a low-resolution screenshot.

• OCR has been run or the text is already digital.

• The file is part of a structured book with page numbers, index, and bookmarks that follow the Court of Appeal’s general PDF guidance.

At CETTEC Printing, we can:

• Review your PDFs for obvious legibility or compression issues before large print runs.

• Help combine web-based material into larger records that follow the Court’s PDF checklists.

• Work from the same version you are e-filing, so what appears on paper matches what the Court sees on screen.

If your team regularly pulls material from websites into appeal records or applications, building a simple “web-to-PDF workflow” around these steps will go a long way toward keeping both your e-filed documents and your printed books clear, readable, and compliant with the Court of Appeal’s expectations.