Look at HTMLdoc as an EXCELLENT server-side html to pdf converter. It's open-source, very fast, free, and generates very, very good output. I can't say enough good things about it. I'd be happy to send you links to sample output, if you wish. (pm me).

If you've taken the wise step of separating presentation from content and logic using modules like HTML:Template, then you can also create a "printable" template that nixes all your graphics and wraps the content in 650 pixel width table. This table width seems to avoid lines being cut off on most browsers. This can be a less desirable option, depending on the nature of the content you're serving.

Update: Spelling fix and added second paragraph.

-Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from doubletalk.

HTMLdoc does look like an excellent solution for a lot of cases. It looks it's been ported to FreeBSD as well. However, it failed my "quick probe" test with the demo provided, by cutting off a wide table instead of shrinking it to web page, or at least creating a second page in the PDF. Maybe that particular issue could be worked out by stricter HTML formatting, or some HTMLdoc configuration option...

It's not perfect, but it appears to be better than anything I've found. :) Thanks.

-mark

Hmm. I haven't run into that issue yet mainly because I think fixed tables suck and should be avoided whenever possible. I assume that this wide table was a fixed width table?

One other tip- I create an HTMLdoc specific template that I then use as the "base" page for pdf conversion- this allows you to ixnay the frivolous (sp?) graphics, leaving only the good stuff. This is a trivial operation if you have everything in a templatting system.

HTMLdoc has an enormous amount of configuration options, I'd be surprised if you weren't able to tweak it to fix your problem on a system-wide basis.

-Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from doubletalk.

If it's a pixel-fixed-width table you can fix this by passing a --browserwidth parameter to htmldoc that's greater than the total width of the table.

.

Big advantage - you only have to set this up once for all pages on the site.

What's that? Your browser does not support these standards? Then upgrade the browser to one that does support CSS-2.

Here Here!

Along that line, you could also use something like AxKit on the backend. It's based on the same premise, xml/xsl/xslt transformations; even mix that backend with client side css on the front end. This is a win win if you want to repurpose output for more than just html for browsers from your site. It even has an AxPoint plugin, so you could translate the same xml doc into a .pdf output by doing something like ?media=pdf with little extra work.

Regardless how what you choose, anything is better and two seperate pages just for two seperate looks on the same content.

Yes, I'm a HUGE fan of AxKit.

Hmm. I wasn't implying that markjugg create two different pages, but two different HTML::Templates, one for browser output and one tweaked especially for HTMLdoc.

That said, Axkit is on my short list of systems to spend more time figuring out, along with Bricolage.

-Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from doubletalk.

My advice is to generate a very simple "HTML light" version: no nested or fixed width tables, no CSS, no JavaScript, no backgrounds or colors of any kind, and perhaps not even images. Also strip it to the basic content, but add information that otherwise might be lost (e.g. current URL). That's the best you can do to work with any browser, printer, OS etc.

Working with XSLT most of my time (which is rather horrible, because you usually end up duplicating code, typing tons of error-prone lines and creating maintenance chaos), I unfortunately can't tell you the way to do it in perl, but surely some fellow monks in here can.