[styx31]

Webpages and pdf (paged documents) are fundamentally different, you won't be able to support easily headers and footers, page-breaks and orphans on a webpage. You can create basic invoices on webpages, but anything more complex (and by that I mean any serious word document) will require you to twist HTML. Try to have column headers to repeat on each printed page on a HTML page.

[aidos]

The markup doesn’t need to be html - and would be better not to be. The point is more that templating languages are great for formatting data as markup and markup is great for driving layout. With this library as a backend you can make something super usable.

[SigmundA]

I believe browsers have been repeating table headers on printed output for some time.

Page media CSS is designed for this although most browsers don't fully support it, PrinceXML is the go to for full paged media support.

IMO they are not fundamentally different, they are both document formats, PDF just a has fixed paged rendering layout baked in while HTML can flow and adjust to rendering target. The main issue is lack of full print CSS support in HTML rendering engines.

https://www.w3.org/TR/css-page-3/

https://www.princexml.com

[styx31]

You are right about the thead repeatable header.

Still, to switch back to the previous point, it seems it's more a divergence between using markup or code to design a document. Both have valid usage and benefits depending on your case.

In my case and my apps, I often need to handle complex conditions that fits better imo in procedural code (complex invoices and agreements). On other cases (reports), I prefer to use a markup language.

[SigmundA]

There are a lot of procedural tools for generating HTML, lots, if modern browsers fully supported print CSS then you could use them for complex PDF generation, or direct printing, either client side or on the server headless.

If your app is a web app this is a no brainer, the users browser could simply do the print or PDF conversion as needed.

I do see a use for more direct libraries in native apps, although if every native client had a browser control with full print CSS support even then it might not be such an issue.

[Scarbutt]

If your app is a web app this is a no brainer, the users browser could simply do the print or PDF conversion as needed.

That's arguable, IME (and also a better UX), most would prefer to just get the PDF file which just one click than to deal with additional browser dialogs. No everyone knows how to do print-to-pdf or even know it exists.

Or do you mean browsers expose print-to-pdf functionality as an API?

[SigmundA]

Hitting print in the browser or calling Window.print() if you want to force the dialog.

If you serve a PDF you still need to hit print or use dialog to save, you can use a headless browser server side to serve that if needed.

I do think browser could use better print API's but you not getting around that with server side PDF's unless the server direct prints to on site printers or something.

[MarcinZiabek]

I am not sure if it is a good idea to think about webpage and PDF content as the same. After all, they both serve different purpose and their layout shouldd be optimized for the use case.

[lazyeye]

None of these things are difficult at all with html. Plus you have the benefit of having the document viewable in a web browser too. You use the exact same html layout for both with specific css (heights, widths mainly) for each.