Browser with best CSS paged media support?

[Laurens]

Hi,
Which browser has the best CSS paged media support? [1]

I'm about to write a business plan, which needs to be printed on paper to be
presented to the bank. Now I cringe at doing this in Word, as I'm far more
comfortable with hand-coding HTML and CSS(though I've never used the
print-specific CSS elements).
Thanks
-Laurens

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/page.html

[Philipp Lenssen]

In article <bh**********@reader10.wxs.nl>, sp**@block.com says...

Which browser has the best CSS paged media support?
(...)

For CSS media print, I have the best experiences with Opera. It's the
same as other browsers in most regards, but it respects page-break
definitions.
I suppose the latest Mozilla might also be worthwhile checking out.

[DU]

Laurens wrote:

Hi,
Which browser has the best CSS paged media support? [1]

I'm about to write a business plan, which needs to be printed on paper to be
presented to the bank. Now I cringe at doing this in Word, as I'm far more
comfortable with hand-coding HTML and CSS(though I've never used the
print-specific CSS elements).
Thanks
-Laurens

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/page.html

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/.../printing.html

but don't expect 100% reliable data from this chart. Browsers always
have bugs; sometimes normal basic testcases do not identify browser
bugs. And browsers are continually being improved.

NS 7.1 support for the page media must be a lot better than the data in
that chart as 12 months of bug fixes and improvements were added into NS
7.1 over NS 7.0. It's not clear.

Bug 24000: CSS page-break-before/after:always Support
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24000

Bug 115199: @page in CSS2 not implemented
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115199

Bug 132035: Support all page-break-* CSS2 properties
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=132035

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunc...e7Section.html

[Andy Dingley]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:01:50 +0100, "PeterMcC" <pe***@mccourt.org.uk>
wrote:

I know it's not the answer you're wanting but I'd seriously suggest you use
a word processor or DTP package.

How many UK banks do you know (for that's where we both are) who could
accept a business plan by email ? My bank (Lloyds) doesn't even
offer _phone_ access to my local branch.

[PeterMcC]

Andy Dingley wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:01:50 +0100, "PeterMcC" <pe***@mccourt.org.uk>
wrote:

I know it's not the answer you're wanting but I'd seriously suggest
you use a word processor or DTP package.

How many UK banks do you know (for that's where we both are) who could
accept a business plan by email ? My bank (Lloyds) doesn't even
offer _phone_ access to my local branch.

I understood that the OP was planning on writing "... a business plan, which
needs to be printed on paper to be presented to the bank."

I'm afraid that I can't understand the point of your question; however, the
answer, since my knowledge of banking procedures is limited to those of the
one that I use, is 'one'.

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

[Andy Dingley]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 21:52:38 +0100, "PeterMcC" <pe***@mccourt.org.uk>
wrote:

I understood that the OP was planning on writing "... a business plan, which
needs to be printed on paper to be presented to the bank."

So printed HTML is perfectly adequate.

The only time I send word-processed documents out electronically in
..doc format is when they're going to the (all too many) muppets who
sincerely believe that Word is the only editor on the planet and that
Outhouse is a mail client. I did go through a phase of sending PDF's
out to recruiters in the IT agency (to stop the devious little slimes
editing my CV), but found out that very few could print them.

If you think that the only way to get a decent layout on paper is to
use Word, then there's a bridge in Seattle you seem to have already
bought. And that's without dredging up DocBook, *roff, TeX and DEC
runoff.

In response to the original question (from politeness more than useful
information) then IMHE they're all still broken. I know I'm out of
date here, but the CSS page-break situation still seems sufficiently
unreliable that I've not yet felt the urge to re-evaluate it.

[news.frontiernet.net]

You have NO CONTROL over which browser your banker will use, assuming they
even know what a browser is. And if they do know what a browser is, they
might not know how to print a paper copy that will have a physical
appearance better than crap.

Use a word processor and submit it on paper or in PDF format. That way yu
can count on the fonts and font sizes being what YOU want.

"Laurens" <sp**@block.com> wrote in message
news:bh**********@reader10.wxs.nl...

Hi,
Which browser has the best CSS paged media support? [1]

I'm about to write a business plan, which needs to be printed on paper to be presented to the bank. Now I cringe at doing this in Word, as I'm far more
comfortable with hand-coding HTML and CSS(though I've never used the
print-specific CSS elements).
Thanks
-Laurens

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/page.html

[Jukka K. Korpela]

"news.frontiernet.net" <rf******@wgtn.net> wrote:

You have NO CONTROL over which browser your banker will use,
Thank you for the usual bogosity alerts (incorrect From field,
SHOUTING, upside-down quoting, etc.). Please continue using them until
you have contribution to make.

As usual, comprehensive quoting indicates lack of comprehensive
reading. The question described:

I'm about to write a business plan, which needs to be printed on
paper to be presented to the bank.

There's no need for any banker to use any browser for that.
Use a word processor and submit it on paper or in PDF format. That
way yu can count on the fonts and font sizes being what YOU want.

Word processors normally produce text in their proprietary formats,
_not_ in PDF format. Anyway, what you describe is an attempt to fight
against the strengths of the Web and of the HTML format.

The real issue, which you have completely missed, was how to author in
HTML _and_ have the document formatted nicely on paper. If the paper
format is the only one in which the document is really needed, I would
vote for MS Word. It _is_ a useful program, though partly poorly
documented and with lots of irritating features. If the document should
also be available in cross-platform format, maybe for use on the Web or
in an intranet, then HTML format might be the best master format.

Unfortunately the method of using CSS is still rather limited in that
respect, though, depending on the nature of the document, it might work
reasonably, if the page is printed Opera or Mozilla. The specifically
page-oriented features of CSS work rather poorly at present, but for a
business plan, it would probably be sufficient to create an edited copy
of the page with "forced" page breaks (e.g. with page-break-before:
always) using CSS. And this might mean that the author needs to work on
that copy iteratively, using the Print Preview function of the browser
to decide on the page breaks. It's a bit dull work, but probably
tolerable. And setting fonts and font sizes in CSS works just fine for
the purpose.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Toby A Inkster]

news.frontiernet.net wrote:

Use a word processor and submit it on paper or in PDF format.

I assumed that Laurens would be submitting in paper format anyway, hence:

| I'm about to write a business plan, which needs to be printed on paper
| to be presented to the bank.

And in answer to the original question. Opera is far and away the best
browser for this sort of thing. It has one or two minor problems[1], but
no show-stoppers.

[1] For example, I don't think it yet can handle tables spilling over
multiple pages and using the <tfoot> and <thead> on each page.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS | mailto:to*****@goddamn.co.uk | pgp:0x6A2A7D39
aim:inka80 | icq:6622880 | yahoo:tobyink | jabber:ta*@jabber.linux.it
http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/ | "You've got spam!"
playing://(nothing)

[PeterMcC]

Andy Dingley wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 21:52:38 +0100, "PeterMcC" <pe***@mccourt.org.uk>
wrote:

I understood that the OP was planning on writing "... a business
plan, which needs to be printed on paper to be presented to the
bank."
So printed HTML is perfectly adequate.

<snip>
If you think that the only way to get a decent layout on paper is to
use Word, then there's a bridge in Seattle you seem to have already
bought. And that's without dredging up DocBook, *roff, TeX and DEC
runoff.

I have, for some years, laboured under the impression that preparing a
document for print would be best done using a word processor or DTP
package - I shall try marking up my next document in HTML, thanks for the
hint which I will pass on to my clients in the publishing industry. As
regards Seattle, I'm afraid that I have no idea how that links into my
suggestion of a word processor or DTP package - if it's a reference to
Microsoft's products, I'm afraid that you've picked up an inference from
elsewhere in the thread that wasn't mine.
--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

[Stephen Poley]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 22:30:03 +0100, Andy Dingley
<di*****@codesmiths.com> wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 21:52:38 +0100, "PeterMcC" <pe***@mccourt.org.uk>
wrote:

I understood that the OP was planning on writing "... a business plan, which
needs to be printed on paper to be presented to the bank."

So printed HTML is perfectly adequate.

I have to disagree here. There is for example no way to specify page
headers and footers in HTML (except to the extent that <TITLE> is used
for such).

If the aim is to provide universal access to information, use HTML. If
you want to produce a printed document, use a word-processor. (Doesn't
have to be Word, of course.) A question of appropriate tools for the
job.

If you want to provide something via HTML, but also give yourself the
best option for printing a reasonably presentable copy, then Opera 7
seems to provide the best support for the CSS page-break properties at
present.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Laurens]

Thanks everyone for their responses.

I'm using an application that helps you set up a business plan(essentially
it's just a questionnaire). Now the good thing about this program is that it
stores its data in an XML file. My initial plan was to write the sections of
the business plan not covered by the questionnaire in XHTML, transform the
questionnaire XML data using XSLT to XHTML, and finally merge the results in
one document. Instead, I went with XSL:FO, which I didn't have any
experience with until yesterday. I transform both my XHTML document and the
questionnaire data to XSL:FO and run it through Apache FOP to produce a PDF.
FOP may have its limitations, but it works well enough for my purposes. The
end result is as good as anything I can produce in Word.
Thanks
-Laurens

[Stan Brown]

In article <Xn*****************************@193.229.0.31> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Jukka K. Korpela
<jk******@cs.tut.fi> wrote:

Unfortunately the method of using CSS is still rather limited in that
respect, though, depending on the nature of the document, it might work
reasonably, if the page is printed Opera or Mozilla. The specifically
page-oriented features of CSS work rather poorly at present, but for a
business plan, it would probably be sufficient to create an edited copy
of the page with "forced" page breaks (e.g. with page-break-before:
always) using CSS. And this might mean that the author needs to work on
that copy iteratively, using the Print Preview function of the browser
to decide on the page breaks.

This is pretty much what I do with materials for my class, when
there is a particularly bad page break on the uncontrolled first
attempt at printing.

Be aware that Mozilla will not break pages on paper quite the same
as it does in Print Preview -- an annoying bug that is still with us
in 1.4 but I hope will be fixed un bel di.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Andrew Fedoniouk]

"Laurens" <sp**@block.com> wrote in message
news:bh**********@reader10.wxs.nl...

Hi,
Which browser has the best CSS paged media support? [1]

I'm about to write a business plan, which needs to be printed on paper to be presented to the bank. Now I cringe at doing this in Word, as I'm far more
comfortable with hand-coding HTML and CSS(though I've never used the
print-specific CSS elements).
Thanks
-Laurens

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/page.html

[Andrew Fedoniouk]

Stay with Word.
Or with TeX if you prefer to focus on coding rather then on content.

Microsoft Word document object model is the best for printing page layout.

Forget about page breaks in the HTML document.
They will be useful only when something like <PAGEBODY> will appear.
Currently they are just nothing.

Andrew Fedoniouk.
http://blocknote.net

[Robert G. Eldridge]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 18:31:23 -0400, Stan Brown
<th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

In article <MP************************@News.Individual.DE> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Philipp Lenssen
<ph*************@bb-k.com> wrote:

In article <bh**********@reader10.wxs.nl>, sp**@block.com says...

Which browser has the best CSS paged media support?
(...)

For CSS media print, I have the best experiences with Opera. It's the
same as other browsers in most regards, but it respects page-break
definitions.
I suppose the latest Mozilla might also be worthwhile checking out.

If by "latest" you mean the 1.5 nightlies, that might be true.

Unfortunately, Moz 1.4 still does not respect page-break, at least
not in tables. It even sometimes cuts an image, printing half on
page N-1 and the other half on page N.

I do though like the way it places <thead> content at the top of each
page when <tbody> content extends over several pages.
--
Robert G. Eldridge Cardiff NSW Australia
http://www2.hunterlink.net.au/~ddrge/