Printing dynamic table - how to make as good as possible

Question

I'm generating dynamically table N columns x M rows

and I'm trying to make it print with default printing options as good as possible

So,

Whenever we're printing the table on A1/A2/A3/A4 paper, then table should TRY to occup full one piece of paper, its avaliable space with as biggest font as possible (people who will read it may not have perfect eyesight)

But when I go to e.g Microsoft Edge (it has tools to manipulate scaling, margins and stuff, so that's why I used it, which kinda worries me too, that printing results on Chrome/FF/Edge may vary)

and use preview (CTRL+P), then it always either takes more than one page, or uses only e.g 40% of avaliable space

A4 paper, no margins:

fit to the printing area:

real size:

Part of Code:




Plan zajęć





    
        
             
                Kolejność godzin lekcyjnych
            
            
             
                Nauczyciele 
 (przydział godzin lekcyjnych w klasach)
            
        
        
        
            John Kovalsky         
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Here's full code (due to characters limit):

https://pastebin.com/raw/36UuuPZy

How to print huge tables right?! :O

user_5189899 · Answer

I added a javascript method FitFontSize to create diffrent layouts for different print sizes. it will try to reduce font size automatically when the table exceeds one page, and keep default font size if the table fit height of print paper.

    let papers = [
       {name:'a1', width:'84cm', height:'58cm', fontSize:20},
       {name:'a2', width:'59cm', height:'41cm', fontSize:18},
       {name:'a3', width:'42cm', height:'28cm', fontSize:16},
       {name:'a4', width:'27cm', height:'16cm', fontSize:14}
    ];
    // the fontSize is the default font size for diffrent paper size
    FitFontSize('t', papers);

here is the full code and a live demo




Plan zajęć





    
    

    
        
            
        
        
            
                
                    Kolejność godzin lekcyjnych
                
                
                    Nauczyciele 
 (przydział godzin lekcyjnych w klasach)
                
            
            
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
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                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky
                John Kovalsky

user_6714627 · Answer

Here's another possible solution:

Source code for HTML table:

Run snippet above, or, get directly from: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/jcollins-bioinfo/ee23a450529342a119ac3e4b12ed3c0a/raw/108fc18b1eb3ae55590dbf69c5741dce5caf0c5f/printing-dynamic-table-how-to-make-as-good-as-possible.html

Printing

Table printed neatly (no headers/footers, minimal margin, max spacing, size A4 paper) in Google Chrome using the shown settings (custom size == 34%)

And here's how I generated the HTML file (using Python Jupyter Notebook)

Ran this code in a notebook cell, where the input html file to pd.read_html can be just a file containing the

...

HTML data:

import dash

from dash import html
from dash import dash_table
from jupyter_dash import JupyterDash

import pandas as pd

app = JupyterDash()

df2 = pd.read_html("name-of-html-file.html", header=[0, 2])[0] # just change this line, for input filename path

app.layout = html.Div([
    dash_table.DataTable(
        id='table',
        columns=[{
            "name": ["Kolejność godzin lekcyjnych"],
            "id": "main_h1"
        }] + [{
            "name": [x1, x2],
            "id": f"{x1}_{x2}"
        } for x1, x2 in df2.columns],
        data=[
            {
                **{
                    "main_h1": df2.index[n]
                },
                **{f"{x1}_{x2}": y
                   for (x1, x2), y in data},
            } for (n, data) in
            [*enumerate([list(x.items()) for x in df2.T.to_dict().values()])]
        ],
        merge_duplicate_headers=True,
    )
])

app.run_server(mode="inline")

Then, I used Chrome DevTools to select the displayed in-notebook Dash app data table, selected only the HTML table tagged element, and copied it to clipboard:

Finally, I simply pasted that html table code into the HTML doc template you provide in your question (thus keeping your specific style code in the tag, etc.). And saved that as an HTML file, opened that file in Chrome, and pressed cmd/ctrl-P to open the print dialogue, as shown above in screenshot.

user_9577985 · Answer

I looked at your code, did some work on it and got this working... I hope it is to your satisfaction. I have reduced the characters in the code below in order to meet StackOverflow's 30,000 characters limit. To get the full code, go to Fit-To-Print-Area : GitHub Gist . You can find screenshots below of the outcome

    
    
    
    Plan zajęć
    
    
    
    
    
    
         
            Kolejność godzin lekcyjnych
        
        
         
            Nauczyciele 
 (przydział godzin lekcyjnych w klasach)
        
    

    
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
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        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky         
        John Kovalsky     
    

                
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Printing dynamic table - how to make as good as possible

3 Answers

Source code for HTML table:

Printing

Table printed neatly (no headers/footers, minimal margin, max spacing, size A4 paper) in Google Chrome using the shown settings (custom size == 34%)

And here's how I generated the HTML file (using Python Jupyter Notebook)