Free online SB2 to PDF converter

Scratch projects are often saved as SB2 files, but people may need a PDF to print project data or share a viewable record with someone who does not use Scratch. A PDF can document the project, but it cannot preserve its interactive behavior.

What the SB2 format is

SB2 is the project format used by Scratch 2.0, the block-based programming environment. An SB2 file is a ZIP archive that typically contains project.json with the project’s sprites, scripts, and stage data, plus any image and sound assets. You encounter it when opening or archiving projects made with Scratch 2.

What the PDF format is

PDF is a document format for sharing and printing paginated content across devices. It is useful for a fixed, viewable record of project information, but it does not run Scratch scripts or retain editable Scratch blocks.

How to convert an SB2 file to PDF

Online on 101convert.com

1. Open the SB2-to-PDF converter page on 101convert.com and upload the SB2 file.
2. Choose PDF as the output format and start the conversion.
3. Download the converted PDF when it is ready. The page supports batch conversion; check its displayed per-file size limit before uploading.

Offline with desktop software

Python and the open-source ReportLab library can make a PDF listing of an SB2 project’s JSON data. This creates a text report, not a visual rendering of Scratch blocks, and does not include the project’s image or sound assets.

1. Install Python and ReportLab, then save the script below as sb2_to_pdf.py in the same folder as project.sb2.
2. Run python -m pip install reportlab, followed by python sb2_to_pdf.py. The script writes project.pdf.

import json
import textwrap
import zipfile
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import A4
from reportlab.lib.styles import ParagraphStyle
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Preformatted

with zipfile.ZipFile("project.sb2") as archive:
    project = json.loads(archive.read("project.json"))

text = json.dumps(project, ensure_ascii=False, indent=2)
lines = []
for line in text.splitlines():
    lines.extend(textwrap.wrap(
        line, width=100, subsequent_indent="  ",
        break_long_words=True, break_on_hyphens=False
    ) or [""])

style = ParagraphStyle(
    "json", fontName="Courier", fontSize=7, leading=8.5
)
document = SimpleDocTemplate("project.pdf", pagesize=A4)
document.build([Preformatted("\n".join(lines), style)])

Quality and limitations

A PDF report of the JSON is searchable text, but its contents are raw project data rather than Scratch’s graphical block layout. To preserve an editable project, keep the original SB2 file; the PDF is only a document representation.