CSS to PDF, using THEAD for repeating header on new page

Question

I have CSS and HTML that I will be converting into PDF. I want to specify a header on each page that, in the PDF, will repeat on each new page.

I know that I can use THEAD to specify the header, however, is there a free html-to-pdf converter that will respect the THEAD tag?

If not, are there any alternatives?

Thanks...

Answer 1

The open source Flying Saucer xhtmlrenderer html-to-pdf converter respects the THEAD tag since release R8 (April 2009). To repeat the THEAD on every page of PDF output, add the following to your CSS:

        table {
            -fs-table-paginate: paginate;
        }

Answer 2

Have look at WeasyPrint, it’s open-source and converts HTML/CSS to PDF. (I’m the developer.)

WeasyPrint does repeat <thead> and <tfoot> on each page, but that’s only for tables. For proper page headers, you can use the Paged Media module of CSS3 (supported in WeasyPrint and some other print-oriented engines)

@page { @top-center { content: "My awesome title"; } }

All the details are in the css3-page spec. At some point I want to write more author-friendly documentation for it, but it’s unfortunately not there yet.

Answer 3

If this is for one time only, perhaps you can simply open the page in a browser and export to PDF from the Print dialog.

This way, the browser deals with correctly displaying the THEAD elements and you get your PDF output.