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I wish there was more done in CSS for generation of print documents. I mean, precise sizing, pixel perfect placement, layouts, etc, that can be printed as PDF

I wish there was more done in CSS for generation of print documents. I mean, precise sizing, pixel perfect placement, layouts, etc, that can be printed as PDF pages. I know there are print related media settings, but they seem overly complex and paid libraries have cropped up, which abstract away the complexity, but charge to provide usability. HTML & CSS, conceptually, are world class technologies. Separation of content and styling, theoretically, should be able to display / output documents for a wide variety of targets. However, media queries are based on screen pixel sizes. I don't know if its even possible, but I would love to define media for PDF documents, Word documents, etc.

scoopertrooper 6y ago
> However, media queries are based on screen pixel sizes. https://joshuawinn.com/css-print-media-query/ https://joshuawinn.com/css-print-media-query/
phonon 6y ago
https://books.idea.whatwg.org/ https://books.idea.whatwg.org/
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  Thank you for this. First time I have come across this. Looks very interesting.
_samjarman 6y ago
Like React-PDF or do you mean something else?
greggman3 6y ago
I'm glad there isn't. I wish more people making documents would get that I live on phones, tablets, notebooks, all with screens of varying sizes. I never print unless some government agency requires it and then I curse that my country is backward compared to say Estonia where rumor is everything is online.
danShumway 6y ago
The print controls are really lacking, there are some good ideas that just kind of never got adopted or implemented. I was/am mildly hopeful that maybe EPUBs will force the web to up its game in those areas. While we're on the subject of print, I am very jealous of the typographic controls that other platforms have. I get that more expensive text-justification algorithms wouldn't work for most apps, but especially for print, there are times that I don't really care about performance, and I would love to have an expensive text-justification algorithm and tools that rivaled something like LaTex. As it stands, the prevailing advice about how to justify text on the web is, "don't".

scoopertrooper 6y ago

> However, media queries are based on screen pixel sizes. https://joshuawinn.com/css-print-media-query/ https://joshuawinn.com/css-print-media-query/

phonon 6y ago

https://books.idea.whatwg.org/ https://books.idea.whatwg.org/

kumarvvr 6y ago
Thank you for this. First time I have come across this. Looks very interesting.

_samjarman 6y ago

Like React-PDF or do you mean something else?

greggman3 6y ago

I'm glad there isn't. I wish more people making documents would get that I live on phones, tablets, notebooks, all with screens of varying sizes. I never print unless some government agency requires it and then I curse that my country is backward compared to say Estonia where rumor is everything is online.

danShumway 6y ago

The print controls are really lacking, there are some good ideas that just kind of never got adopted or implemented. I was/am mildly hopeful that maybe EPUBs will force the web to up its game in those areas. While we're on the subject of print, I am very jealous of the typographic controls that other platforms have. I get that more expensive text-justification algorithms wouldn't work for most apps, but especially for print, there are times that I don't really care about performance, and I would love to have an expensive text-justification algorithm and tools that rivaled something like LaTex. As it stands, the prevailing advice about how to justify text on the web is, "don't".