# Multi-page printing moving on **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 28, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482 "2006-02-28T02:08:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/1 "2006-02-28T02:08:04Z")
I have some nice forms done using stylesheets. I currently have them displaying on screen and the user could simply just print. This works when there is only one form (facility) to be viewed/printed. I have created the looping code necessary to print for all facilities but that doesn’t work for me because each page uses stylesheets with that do absolute positioning and thus each form overlays the previous forms and it becomes a blurry mess. When using css, there are styles strictly for printing that allow the use of ‘page breaks’ but given the format I am doing (viewing on screen and then printing), this clearly doesn’t work. So I looked at other methodologies… HTMLDOC doesn’t support stylesheets PdfWriter has it’s own markup code PDF::Writer has it’s own markup code I suppose the only thing I can do is simply render to print and I haven’t a clue on how to do that (client side javascript?) or render to file. Anybody doing something like this that can push me in a direction? Craig ---
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/2 "2006-02-28T05:23:56Z")
I guess I may be a bit unclear. Do you have a separate css file for media=“print”? And it’s not working? Regards, Ben Vaughan ---
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 5:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/3 "2006-02-28T05:27:50Z")
NO - I just have one css file and it’s set for media=‘all’ Does having separate css files for print and screen matter? Craig ---
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 6:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/4 "2006-02-28T06:09:06Z")
Definately. If you try to combine your screen layout rules with your print rules, I’m not surprised it’s not working. Best practice is to create a separate stylesheet just for print. There’s a good write up from Eric Meyer (one of CSS’s creators) at A List Apart. > **[CSS Design: Going to Print](https://alistapart.com/article/goingtoprint/)** > > Say no to “printer-friendly” versions and yes to printer-specific style sheets. CSS expert Eric Meyer shows how to conceive and design print style sheets that automatically format web c… It might not be a perfect fit for your situation, but it’ll help out with a lot of the basics. Regards, Ben Vaughan ---
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/5 "2006-02-28T20:05:18Z")
I still haven’t verified the issue and I will later on - I was able to get the page break to function not when I split the stylesheets into separate stylesheets for screen & print but when I made the very first object on the page NOT use position : absolute; - this is all very hair splitting stuff. I do plan on getting back to this and nailing it all down once and for all and I just wanted to say thanks for the guidance and the direction to the the interesting information at alistapart. Craig ---
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 9:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/6 "2006-03-01T09:49:28Z")
position:absolute == evil. b ---
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/7 "2006-03-01T15:06:46Z")
On Wed, 2006-03-01 at 00:51 -0800, Ben M. wrote: > position:absolute == evil. * * * excepting of course, when it works. 😉 I’m new at this…I’m learning and yes, I have discovered the dark side…call me Anakin. 😉 Craig ---
**Author:** ![craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@craigrails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/craigrails)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2006, 7:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/multi-page-printing-moving-on/74482/8 "2006-03-01T07:11:55Z")
As it turned out, it really didn’t matter if the media rules were separate for screen/print or if they were the same and I set the media type ‘all’, once I fixed the issue of page breaks, it pretty much worked for both. The issue turned out to be ‘positioning’ as I had set all the elements to be absolute positioning which meant that page breaks created new blank pages as opposed to to rendering each form on it’s own page. The way that I ultimately solved it seemed rather innocuous but it was effective. The first element to be printed/viewed on the page was an ![]() tag - the logo. I change that to position : relative; and left everything else set to absolute and that formed each page properly. Thanks Craig