711: The Surprisingly Exciting World of Print + PDF CSS

This podcast episode delves into various aspects of print styling, debugging, optimization, and PDF creation. It covers topics such as CSS counters for print and digital documents, creating named pages and controlling headers, footers, and page numbers, and the use of headless browsers and services to generate PDFs from webpages. The episode also highlights the challenges faced in Wi-Fi printing and explores potential solutions for easier and more secure printing experiences. Takeaways • CSS counters can be used to count things in CSS, such as chapters, subheadings, and table of contents entries. • Named pages in CSS allow for different page layouts and templates, including controlling headers, footers, and page numbers. • Headless browsers like Puppeteer can be used to render HTML and CSS accurately to create PDFs. • Services like Docraptor allow developers to generate PDFs without maintaining or hosting any services. • When designing websites, it is important to consider printing and use print CSS to hide unnecessary elements, avoid low-contrast text, and use patterns or other visual cues to denote information. • Wi-Fi printing can be challenging due to difficulties accessing printers and security concerns. Web technologies like web bluetooth and the web serial API are being explored to provide more convenient and secure printing experiences. • Use pseudo element to append links and titles after the content, word wrap to prevent long URLs from spilling onto the next page, laser printers as they are relatively inexpensive and have low maintenance costs.