SideNote ProExport an AI response to PDF
Save as PDF takes one assistant response and renders it as a document, locally, with real selectable text. This is how to use it and what to expect from the result.
How to export
- Find the Save as PDF actionIt sits beside the copy action on every settled assistant response.
- Choose where to saveA native Windows save dialog opens with a suggested file name you can change.
- SaveThe PDF is rendered on your machine and written to that location. Cancelling the dialog does nothing at all.
This exports one response, not the conversation. For the whole thread, use Markdown export from the history flyout. The two features exist for different jobs, and it is better to know that now than to discover it while trying to hand over a transcript.
What you get
An A4 document with a restrained header carrying SideNote Pro and the provider and model that produced the response, a centred page number, and an optional title with the local date. Typography is sized for paper, not transplanted from the screen.
- Headings, paragraphs, bold, italic, inline code, lists and block quotes are preserved.
- Tables repeat their headers across pages, wrap cell text, and shrink from 9 pt to 7 pt before columns are redistributed, so a wide table is never clipped.
- Code blocks use a monospaced face on a tinted panel and wrap rather than running off the margin.
- Folder Sources are appended under their own heading with the same provenance labels the conversation shows. Excerpt bodies are never included.
- Long responses paginate naturally.
Text is drawn as real text, so the result is selectable, copyable and searchable. Stopped or partial responses can be exported and are marked stopped before completion in the meta line.
File naming
The suggested name comes from the conversation title, then the response's first heading, then the start of the response, falling back to SideNote Pro response. Characters Windows rejects are removed, reserved device names avoided, and the name truncated at a word boundary.
A practical consequence: renaming a thread to something descriptive before exporting gives you a better default file name. Worth doing when you are about to export several responses from one conversation.
Nothing leaves your machine
Rendering happens from the response already on your PC. No provider request, no licensing request, no telemetry, no upload. Nothing is added to usage or cost accounting, and nothing is written anywhere but the file you chose.
Nothing sensitive travels in the document either: token counts, cost estimates, provider profile identifiers, usage ledger data, system framing and licensing state are never written to it. What you can share is the answer, not your configuration.
The script limitation
PDF export covers Latin script. SideNote Pro embeds a subset of the Windows Arial faces, with Consolas for code, rejecting any face whose OpenType fsType forbids embedding or subsetting, and falling back to the Standard-14 fonts if no usable face is found.
Characters outside the repertoire are transliterated (→ becomes ->), accent-folded (É becomes E), or replaced with ?. CJK, Arabic and emoji will not survive. If you work in those scripts, use Markdown export or copy the response instead.
When to reach for it
- A technical explanation for a ticket, so the reasoning is attached where the work happens.
- The analysis behind a decision, filed so it outlives the decision.
- A structured recommendation for a client or stakeholder who will never see the conversation.
- A research answer archived outside the conversation archive, where retention will not eventually prune it.
- Something to read on paper, away from the machine, where a PDF beats a chat log.
One habit worth forming: when you get an answer you know you will need again, export it immediately. It takes four seconds, and it is more reliable than trusting you will find the thread later.