How to print WhatsApp messages for court

Export to PDF, don't print screenshots

A stack of screenshots printed one-per-page has no page numbers, no consistent timestamp format (WhatsApp often shows “Today” or “Yesterday” instead of a date), and no way for a reader to tell if pages are missing or out of order. Courts see this often enough that clerks and judges have learned to distrust it.

Exporting the chat instead gives you the complete text of the conversation with every timestamp intact. Feed that export into a PDF generator built for this — see WhatsApp chat to PDF — and you get a document with a cover page, consistent formatting, page numbers and a footer on every page. Print that PDF rather than individual screenshots.

How to export the chat first

1. On the phone that has the conversation, open WhatsApp and export the chat — see how to export on iPhone or how to export on Android for exact steps.
2. Choose to include media if photos or videos are part of what you're presenting; otherwise a text-only export is smaller and faster.
3. Save the .txt or .zip somewhere safe, then open chattoevidence.com and drop the file in to generate the PDF.
4. Print the finished PDF, or save it as the exhibit file you'll submit electronically if your court accepts e-filing.

Page numbers and exhibit labels

Courts generally want every page of an exhibit numbered and labeled — for example “Exhibit A, page 3 of 12” — so nothing can be silently added, removed or reordered without it being obvious. Chat to Evidence's Case Pass adds Bates numbering (a sequential number stamped on every page, like CTE-000001, CTE-000002) and lets you set an exhibit label that appears in the footer alongside the page count. Check with the court clerk or your counsel on the exact labeling convention your court expects, since these vary by jurisdiction.

Bring the original device, and keep the .txt

A printed PDF is much easier for a judge to read, but the underlying export file and the phone it came from are what let anyone verify the printout is genuine. Keep the original .txt (or .zip) file — don't edit it, rename the conversation inside it, or delete lines — and if possible bring the phone itself in case opposing counsel or the court wants to see the messages live in the app.

Do not retype, paraphrase or reformat messages by hand before printing. Any manual re-creation of the conversation invites a challenge that the export doesn't. Work from the original export straight through to PDF.

The SHA-256 fingerprint, in plain English

SHA-256 is a mathematical function that turns a file into a short string of letters and numbers, unique to that exact file. Change even one character in the original export and the string comes out completely different. The Case Pass certification page prints this fingerprint for the source file you uploaded, so months later anyone can re-run the same function on your saved .txt or .zip and confirm it matches — proving the PDF was generated from that specific, unaltered export rather than from a file someone tampered with afterward. You don't need to understand the math to use it; you just need to keep the original file so the check is possible.