RE: Line breaks - HTML doc with printer-friendly PDF?

["John Locke" <mail -at- freelock -dot- com>]

Tom Maas asks,
> What is your preferred way to control where the line breaks happen when
> printing an HTML document?
>
> 1. Javascript (not supported on some browsers)?
> 2. Page length HTML table rows?
> 3. Multiple HTML files - one for every page?
> 4. New options in latest HTML?
> 4. Stay with PDF and live with the redundancy?
>

In my experience, the main thing that screws up printing HTML is the
combination of tables and graphics (ignoring frames, that is...). If you put
an image inside a table, it forces that column to be at least as wide as the
image. By the time you have a few columns, you end up off the right edge of
the page.

You can define a print-specific cascading style sheet, but nothing really
gives you control over page breaks.

Line breaks? I'd say don't worry about 'em. Keep the page design simple, and
the lines will automatically break at an appropriate place. The exception is
if the text is in a table cell that extends past the right edge of the page.
So make sure your tables can go as narrow as a typical page, and you're
fine... as long as the user hasn't increased their font size beyond what
you've tested... this could be a valid argument for prescriptive
font-setting in a print-specific style sheet.

This solution should work for the vast majority of Internet users, but can
be easily overridden by someone really trying... disabling all style sheets,
for example, in Opera. PDF is the only sure way, but HTML can work if you
keep it simple.

Good luck,
John Locke
http://www.freelock.com


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