I want to show the user how a page will look when printed, without actually asking them to click on the print button. I have the necessary media query based CSS for printing, but that will only be applied in print preview and when the page is actually printed. My requirement is to display the print formatted page in a dialog box within the app.
I have come across this same requirement for a project. AFAIK this cannot be done as the #media print rule is specific for printing to low cost devices, as per the specification.
My workaround has been to emulate a printed paper using CSS. For instance, I created a div with a grey background and then an inner div with a white background, emulating paper. I set margins according to my print margins and placed html inside this container. This approach does not guarantee by any means a replica of what to expect when printing, since elements such as wide tables and images might make the container wider than the printed page, while a print engine could apply scaling.
Compounding these issues, it is not possible to reliably predict how print engines and printer configurations might handle page breaks. You can help with suggestive css attributes in the #media print rule, like page-break-inside, page-break-before, page-break-after, widows, and orphans. In my print preview div, I simply layout a continuous html within the emulation containers and make it clear to the user this is an emulation.
Related
For an Ext JS 4.1 grid with GroupingSummary, I want to be able to print one page per group.
I am able to get a working solution on Firefox by adding a row after each summary, and setting its #media print style to page-break-before:always. However, this does not work on Chrome or Safari. As I understand it, the reason is that Webkit does not support page-break-before on table rows. I even tried setting the table row display style to block to try to force it, but the page top margins are messed up.
I also was able to get a working solution for all browsers by writing a special printer script, which basically extracts the grid html, clones grid html for each group, and moves each group's table rows to one of these new html grids. Then it takes all the html and writes it to an iframe that covers over the existing web page screen and calls window.print(). One nice thing is that the column headers are at the top of each new group's page.
My main two gripes with this solution are: (1) user can't print original web page using browser print function, i.e., user needs to click on my print button; and (2) it's hacky.
It seems like the best solution would be an Ext-native solution for rendering grouped grids, each its own html table. Does anybody have their own solution that they like?
I have tried to search for this all over, but haven't found anything close to my question anywhere.
Does anyone know if it's possible to print out a CSS generated linear-gradient? I am mocking up a website for my boss, and it looks really nice, but when I try to make a printer-friendly page, the gradients don't display at all.
For reference, what I'm trying to print is a indicator bar that has a slider element on top of it, to indicate the result of a value within a range.
The gradients look really great on the page, but just don't show up in a print dialog.
Thanks in advance!
If i understand your problem correctly, sounds like all background images aren't printing right? That's a default behavior of IE. To print background graphics (which might include your 'gradient graphic', go to print -> page setup and click on "Print background colors and images".
Hope this helps.
Not exact here, but printing is rendered in it's own engine apart from the browsers engine.
It TYPICALLY (with the exception of say, the iPad) filters out background images and certain types of rendered material to save on ink. The only way to change this is if the user changes his or her own printing preferences.
There is no CSS or Javascript way to make this happen, unless you render the page as an image, and print the image.
I can go in to more detail if you'd like, but with the exception of the iPad, print formatting like eMail formatting is a tricky area to get in to.
In other topics I've found that IE/FF doesn't print background images by default. Now that's a shame, because background images add some possibilities that are very difficult to reproduce with classical <img> tags:
You can align them both horizontally and vertically
You can crop them if they are larger than the target element (which also enables the idea of CSS sprites)
Now, it's not impossible to do, but it will require me to have different HTML layouts for printing and normal page, and the printing layout will be quite overcomplicated (since I'll have to use <table>s to achieve vertical alignment). Also, the benefits of CSS sprites will be lost.
Is there any hope? I gather that #media print doesn't help, but isn't there something else, maybe browser-specific, that would allow one to say: "Yes, this isn't a normal background, it really needs to be there even in print view"?
Not possible. You would have to some how convert your background images to img or use Canvas. Of course using canvas depends on which IE you supporting.
Its a browser setting which restricts the printing of background images. I think the logic behind it was that the vendors wanted to give the users the option of printing background images and ensure that the web developer could not alter these settings through some sort of script.
As a general rule, background images should be reserved for adding to the page design but aren't essential to understanding the content. Therefore it shouldn't matter if they are missing when the page is printed. If something (such as a product shot) is important, then it should be included as an actual image (which has the added bonus of being more accessible).
Could you look at including the image, then hiding it using CSS and duplicating is as a background image (perhaps dynamically using JS)? That way, you can ensure the image itself shows in your print stylesheet, and you get the benefits that having a background image brings. I've created a very simple example here.
Is possible to print a background-image whithout enabling "Print Background colors and images" in Advanced tab of Internet Options ?
I think to use a alternative way without "background-image"... Using div tag and position absolute is possible to emulate the same effect of background-image? Also I would like to repeat the background image through the page.
The ability to print background images (those images specified as background-images in the markup) is entirely up to the end user, you can not control this programmatically from your code. There is a plugin for Firefox that provides a JavaScript API to control many print settings - this might be able to control background-images. However, this obviously only works in Firefox and is dependent on the end user having this particular plugin installed.
You could use absolutely positioned IMG tags and manage the z-index of layered containers to push the IMG to the back, but TBH it's starting to get messy and you may not be able to achieve the affect you are after and maintain correct semantic markup. Certainly if you want the IMG to repeat you'd have to resort to JavaScript to create and position multiple IMG tags, or create one large image that you have manually tiled - not recommended.
Unless you have a specific requirement, users generally do not want (or need) background images to be printed - hence the easy reach option in the browser. So it may be best to rethink the problem. Print and screen are two very different media so you shouldn't necessarily try to mimic on screen display in print, hence CSS's ability to create print only stylesheets - if that is what you are trying to achieve?
What are the right sizes for a webpage to be printed on A4 size paper? What other stuff should be considered?
*inline CSS is preferred in this case
Clarification: This web-page's only propose is to be printed, since it is a receipt.
Clarification # 2: This web-page is for the internal use of the company I'm working for. They would like it to look professionally designed receipt.
Clarification # 3: This web-page must be printed on one page -of A4 size- only.
Answer
I'd recommend using two different style sheets.
For viewing in the browser you could set the table width to the width of an A4 paper: 21cm. (Minus margins 18cm.)
For printing the size of the table should be "100%", which means the printer fills the whole width of the page, using the margins given by the browser's settings. (Those page margins are what makes it impossible for you to make a printout look exactly the same.)
Possibly working
Make the table narrow enough to be safe it's in the page margins. Then center that table vertically.
Solution for perfect layout
There's no way you're going to achieve that with HTML & CSS, it's just not designed to allow exact layouts!
Create PDFs online and let the users download them. Most browsers are able to render PDFs anyway.
the best way is use from #Media command in stylesheet
for example
#media print{}
use for print layout of all control and
#media screen{}
used for screen layout of control, just think you have a
<div class="wrapper">content</div>
and then in your media you should have
#media print{ .wrapper{width: 100%;background-color:Transparent;color:Black;}}
and
#media screen{ .wrapper{width: 100%;background-color:#cdebcd;color:Red;}}
with this #media you can style your layout totaly different for print and screen. you can also use
.SomeDivOrContent{visibility:hidden;display:none;}
to hide ites in print.
let me know was it helpfull or not
Like the other guys said you need to use a print CSS, but remember one thing:
display:none; //is your friend!
You can use this to make sure elements such as your navigation etc are not printed out.
By the way A List Apart has this great article on print stylesheets, check it out.
Make your printable version as simple and free from page furniture as possible.
You should create a print-specific stylesheet that as a minimum removes any width restrictions on the page so the print page can flow the text to fit the output paper.
You should also be aware that most browser don't print CSS background images by default so don't rely on them being present on the printed page.
EDIT: In answer to your comment, I would make the receipt as simple as possible. The main issue is you don't have control over the end-user's printer so you can't know for sure exactly how wide the printable area is.
Design the page using a liquid/flowable layout and try and keep it simple. Amazon's receipt style that you get in the delivery box is probably worth using for inspiration.