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Is there any intention to fix printing? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This has been an issue for a long time. I’ve been trying to avoid Chromium based browsers, but Firefox seems to be unable to print a lot of web pages without cutting off the content between pages. This is Firefox specific, as it doesn’t happen with Chromium browsers. It’s really a pain in the ass when I need to print something I have to open another browser and print it from there. I see tons of complaints about this online going back for years. I just spent the past two hours trying (unsuccessfully) to print a recipe correctly. I eventually gave up, opened Edge and printed from there. The current state of web browsers is dogshit. It’s either give up all of your privacy or use broken stuff. Neither is good.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Firefox seems to be unable to print a lot of web pages

Example page?

Also i'd suggest you post "steps to reproduce" together with your "expected result" and "actual result".
That way others can compare and verify and we already have everything necessary to potentially open a bugzilla ticket.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

this user bugreports!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Printing this page as PDF, set page size to A4 , scaling 100% ( default ) https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/09/07/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-will-keep-testing-the-west

First bar graph is split across page 2 & 3.

Pick any article from the economist, which has graphs or charts and it will happen , same with ft.com, Bloomberg.

The website is responsible for providing a print layout, but the browser should be smarter and assume that the website was made by obstinate toddlers.

Prints fine on Chromium & Edge. The inferior browsers move the "image" so it does not span pages.

Before anyone gets upset , my default browser on all devices is Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As a workaround, i found that the addon Print Edit WE includes a "Fix Page Breaks - All" function. Just click the toolbar icon and then on the Tools button

Tools Button

Result:

Hope this helps a little.

PS:

the browser should be smarter and assume that the website was made by obstinate toddlers.

I'd guess that when you try to make your product "to smart" it can have the unwanted concequence of gaining greater complexity and with it a higher effort for maintainablility, which might not be something you want.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks. Added that addon. This will help a lot.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, I didn’t post “steps to reproduce” because I’m not doing anything special. Open the menu, click print, click print in the print modal window. I expect that I get a printed page, which I do, but Firefox doesn’t crop to the margins. The bottom margin is whited out, but it’s like parts of the page are hidden behind it so between every page there is missing text. It’s not my printer because the same happens when I try to print to pdf, and I also use Firefox at work on a different machine with different printers and get the same result. I’m not at my computer at the moment to post an example page.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As others already have mentioned, the issue might only be partially firefox's fault. Meaning that webpage that wants to be printable should normally have to provide a print layout and if it doesnt then it is up to the browser to make a best guess at how to render it correctly for printing. Sadly the modern web has a huge amount of web content (sticky headers, floating elements, shadow/hidden elements, and so on) that can make it really hard to interpret pages suitable for printing.

That said, that doesnt mean that there is no room for improvement to firefox's "best guess".

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I'm genuinely sorry but I can't reproduce the effects you're describing. I generate pdfs from Firefox all the time and have never encountered an issue like this.

That's why describing how to reproduce is important.

Could there be an addon you have which is causing this problem? That would explain why it happens for you on different machines.