Print table to multi-page pdf

[Paul]

I'm printing a table containing an unknown number of rows to pdf - the output is printing to multiple pages automatically. However, the width of the columns on each page varies and I would like to overcome this, if possible.

Ideally, I would be able to repeat the header row on each page using a template, but I suspect this wouldn't affect the cell widths of subsequent rows.

I don't want to fix the cell widths on the table when the page is rendered, but I have tried to fix the width of all the cells using javascript immediately before printing. This had no affect, however.

What is the best way to deal with this?

[Mihai]

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately, this isn't doable at the moment.  The way automatic page breaking works is by physically splitting a copy of the DOM nodes, so for example:

    <table>
      <tr>...</tr>
      <tr>...</tr>
      ...
    </table>

becomes:

    <!-- page 1 -->
    <table>
      <tr>..</tr>
      ...
    </table>
    
    <!-- page 2 -->
    <table>
      <tr>..</tr>
      ...
    </table>

When the width of each cell is determined by content, then obviously they will not match from a page to another.  The only thing I can recommend for now is to assign fixed widths to <td> elements.

Also, repeating the header is not supported.  Please feel free to post a feature request for this at our User Voice Forum.

Regards,
Mihai
Telerik

 

 

[Paul]

Thanks for your reply Mihai,

I tried fixing the width of all <td> elements immediately before printing, using javascript and inline styles, but this had no effect. Is this the right approach, or do the widths have to be assigned via a stylesheet/class?

Paul

[Mihai]

Hi Paul,

That should work, I don't think doing it via classes/stylesheets is going to do any better.  Can you please post an example on http://dojo.telerik.com/ so I can investigate?

Regards,
Mihai
Telerik

 

 

[Paul]

Hi Mihai,

I realised that the class assigned to the cell had a max-width property to keep the cells narrow. When I assign both 'width' and 'min-width' inline styles to the cells, it works a lot better. For some reason it isn't perfect - there is still some small variation in width - but it's much better.

Thanks for your help.

Paul