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I use Firebug and IE Developer Toolbar all the time to debug tricky CSS problems. But occasionally, a tricky bug comes up that only appears when you go to print the page.
What techniques/tools do you use to diagnose problems like this? Is there a way to get more use out of traditional CSS debugging tools in print view?
Updated: I already use a PDF printer to avoid wasting paper; my problem is that I can't right-click on the printed DOM. Some of the other answers below are quite helpful, thanks. :-)
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While you can not "debug" CSS, because it is not a scripting language, you can utilize the Chrome DevTools Elements panel to inspect an element & view the Styles pane on the right. This will give you insights as to the styles being overridden or ignored (line threw).
Developer Tools. The DevTools ( F12 or Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + I ) can emulate print styles, although page breaks won't be shown. In Chrome, open the Developer Tools and select More Tools, then Rendering from the three-dot icon menu at the top right. Change the Emulate CSS Media to print at the bottom of that panel.
HTML, CSS and JavaScript You can use CSS to change the appearance of your web page when it's printed on a paper. You can specify one font for the screen version and another for the print version. You have seen @media rule in previous chapters. This rule allows you to specify different style for different media.
Just found a comment by lee-penkman about a new feature in Firefox here: Press Shift-F2 in Firefox to open the browser console (not the javascript console), then enter media emulate print. Works absolutely great!
Update Sept. 2018: Starting with Firefox 62, the developer console has disappeared. There doesn't seem to be a way to activate print style emulation now.
Update Nov. 2019: It seems that in Firefox 69, there is again a new button for print style emulation. See the other answer on this page: https://stackoverflow.com/a/58015662/195476
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In Chrome 51:
Open devtools (CTRL + F12 or CTRL + SHIFT + I) and click on the ... menu, click More Tools > Rendering settings to open the Rendering tab of the developer console (alternatively, if the console is open just navigate to this tab).
In that tab, select and check the box for Emulate Media: print.
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