You download all the pages of a website by crawling it and saving each page, then choosing the format for your goal: PDF if you want a readable archive, or HTML if you want a portable backup you can reuse. That choice comes first, because the two formats serve different ends. A crawler starts at the homepage, follows every link, and saves each page as it goes; from that set you either render PDFs for reading, or keep the HTML with its images for porting elsewhere. With access to the site you can also export from the CMS, which is tidier for a migration, but for a full visual archive the crawl-and-save approach captures every public page exactly as it appears. Pick PDF to keep and read, HTML to move. WPBuildAI scans the live site and returns every page as clean content with its images and URLs, ready for either.
Note which core version produced the archive, because WordPress 7.0 landed on 20 May 2026 and reached 7.0.2 by 17 July, and a capture taken across an upgrade can mix two different block markup conventions in the same set of files.
PDF or HTML: pick by purpose
Before the method, decide the format, because it follows what you will do with the archive. If you want a fixed copy to read, file, or keep as a record, PDF is right: it is stable, opens anywhere, and preserves how each page looks. If you want to reuse the content, rebuild the site, or move it to another platform, PDF is the wrong choice, because it is hard to reimport; there the format is HTML or Markdown, which keep the text structured and editable. Choosing the format by purpose avoids the common mistake of saving everything as PDF and then finding you cannot reuse any of it later.
To read and archive: PDF
If you want a readable archive, render one PDF per page. Each page becomes a document that preserves the headings, text, and images as they appear on the site. For a handful of pages, the browser’s print-to-PDF does the job; for a whole site, a tool that crawls and renders in batch saves you doing each by hand. The result is a set of files that are easy to file and read offline, with no dependency on the site staying up. It is the right option for a legal or historical record, or for handing the content to someone who only needs to read it, not edit it.
To back up and reuse: HTML
If the goal is a backup you can reuse, save the pages as HTML, or Markdown, rather than PDF. Unlike a PDF, these keep the text structured, with headings and links intact, so another system can import them. Keep the images alongside, with their paths, so the saved pages are not full of gaps. This is the format you want if the download is really a portability or migration step, related to the risks of moving to a new CMS. Because content and URLs are what rank, as Backlinko’s analysis found, keeping the clean HTML preserves what matters if you later rebuild the site elsewhere.
How a crawl captures every page
The engine behind both formats is a crawl. A crawler begins at the homepage, follows every internal link, opens each page, and saves the text, images, and metadata. This is how you capture pages that are not in the main menu but still exist, the same approach as extracting all images at once and extracting data without Python. It needs no login or server access, because it uses only what is publicly visible. The one limit is that it captures pages reachable by links; a page that nothing links to, and that is not in the sitemap, can be missed, which is why a URL list matters.
With CMS access: the built-in export
If you have access to the CMS, there is a tidier route for the content itself. WordPress, for example, has a built-in export and a REST API that returns pages as structured data, which is cleaner for a migration than scraping rendered HTML. The trade-off is that a CMS export gives you the content, not the exact visual appearance, so for a faithful archive of how pages looked, the crawl-and-save approach is still better. Many people use both: the CMS export for the reusable content, and the crawl for a visual PDF archive. Pick the one that matches whether you care about the content or the appearance.
Don’t forget images and a URL list
Downloading all pages is not just the text: images and completeness matter. Images inside the pages must come along with the right paths, or the PDF and HTML are full of blank spaces; the Web Almanac 2024 (HTTP Archive) is a reminder of how much a page carries in media. Just as important is a URL list, so you can confirm the archive actually covers every page rather than only the ones the crawl happened to reach, as in listing every URL. If the download is a step toward moving the site, also plan the URLs, keeping them or redirecting with 301s per Google’s site move guidance.
Step by step
- Decide the purpose: archive (PDF) or reuse (HTML or Markdown).
- Crawl the site to capture every linked page.
- Cross-check with a URL list so nothing is missed.
- Render PDFs from the clean HTML if archiving.
- Keep the images with the right paths in either format.
- If moving the site, keep URLs or set 301s on the new platform.
Worked example: archiving a whole site
Take a site that needs a complete copy, partly as a readable archive and partly for a future rebuild. A crawl walks the site, saving each page as clean HTML with its images and metadata, and a URL list confirms all 60 pages were reached, including two not in the menu. From the HTML, one PDF per page is rendered for the reading archive, and the HTML is kept for the future rebuild. Because the images came with the right paths, neither the PDFs nor the HTML have blank spaces. When the rebuild happens, the HTML is imported and the URLs are handled with 301s. One crawl served both purposes, because the pages were captured clean and complete.
Common mistakes
- Saving everything as PDF, then being unable to reuse it in a migration.
- Relying only on a crawl and missing pages that nothing links to.
- Leaving images out, so the PDF or HTML has blank spaces.
- Forgetting a URL list, so you cannot tell if the archive is complete.
- Treating a faithful visual archive and a content export as the same thing.
Key points
You download all the pages of a website by crawling it and saving each page, then picking the format for your goal: PDF for a readable archive, HTML or Markdown for a portable backup you can reuse. A crawl captures every linked page without server access; cross-check it against a URL list so nothing is missed, and keep the images with the right paths so there are no blank spaces. With CMS access, a built-in export is tidier for reusable content, while the crawl is better for a faithful visual archive. If the download is a step toward moving the site, plan the URLs with 301s. WPBuildAI scans the live site and returns every page as clean content with its images and URLs, ready for either. Send your site URL for a free assessment.
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