Description

The Spring Boot reference guide is currently served only as HTML at
https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/reference/. Other Spring projects (e.g. Spring Framework, Spring Data, Spring AI) already expose a PDF download link, but Spring Boot does not have a “PDF” button or a publicly reachable spring-boot-reference.pdf file.

Why a PDF is needed

  • Offline access – many developers work in air‑gapped environments, on trains, or with spotty internet connections and need a local copy of the guide.
  • Print‑friendly – teams often print the documentation for classroom training, workshops, or quick desk reference.
  • Consistency across the ecosystem – having a PDF for Spring Boot would make the documentation experience uniform with the rest of the Spring portfolio.
  • Stable citation – a version‑locked PDF provides a reliable reference for books, blog posts, academic papers, and internal knowledge bases.

Suggested implementation

  1. Generate the PDF from the existing AsciiDoc source (spring-boot-docs/src/main/asciidoc/).
  2. Spring Boot already uses the Asciidoctor toolchain; a Gradle/Maven task similar to the one used by other Spring projects can be added (e.g., asciidoctorPdf).
  3. Publish the file alongside the HTML docs at a URL that follows the existing pattern, e.g.:
    https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/reference/pdf/spring-boot-reference.pdf
  4. Add a “PDF” icon/link to the documentation navigation bar (the same UI element that appears on the Spring Framework and Spring Data sites).

Affected version(s)

The request applies to the current GA release (e.g. 3.3.x) and all future releases.

Additional context

  • A similar enhancement was discussed for Spring AI: https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-ai/issues/??? (PDF generation not yet available).
  • The Spring Boot documentation source is already version‑controlled, so adding a PDF generation step is straightforward and does not affect existing builds.

Desired outcome

  • A downloadable PDF for every released version of Spring Boot.
  • (Optional) Packaging the PDF as a Maven/Gradle artifact (spring-boot-docs with classifier pdf) so users can fetch it programmatically.

Thank you for considering this enhancement!