How to deal with page breaks when printing a large HTML table
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Test</title>
<style type="text/css">
table { page-break-inside:auto }
tr { page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:auto }
thead { display:table-header-group }
tfoot { display:table-footer-group }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th>heading</th></tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr><td>notes</td></tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>x</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>x</td>
</tr>
<!-- 500 more rows -->
<tr>
<td>x</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Note: when using the page-break-after:always for the tag it will create a page break after the last bit of the table, creating an entirely blank page at the end every time! To fix this just change it to page-break-after:auto. It will break correctly and not create an extra blank page.
<html>
<head>
<style>
@media print
{
table { page-break-after:auto }
tr { page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:auto }
td { page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:auto }
thead { display:table-header-group }
tfoot { display:table-footer-group }
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
....
</body>
</html>
Expanding from Sinan Ünür solution:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Test</title>
<style type="text/css">
table { page-break-inside:auto }
div { page-break-inside:avoid; } /* This is the key */
thead { display:table-header-group }
tfoot { display:table-footer-group }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th>heading</th></tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr><td>notes</td></tr>
</tfoot>
<tr>
<td><div>Long<br />cell<br />should'nt<br />be<br />cut</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><div>Long<br />cell<br />should'nt<br />be<br />cut</div></td>
</tr>
<!-- 500 more rows -->
<tr>
<td>x</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>
It seems that page-break-inside:avoid
in some browsers is only taken in consideration for block elements, not for cell, table, row neither inline-block.
If you try to display:block
the TR
tag, and use there page-break-inside:avoid
, it works, but messes around with your table layout.