Using puppeteer I need a PDF where the first page has no margins and later pages do. How can I do this?
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browserInst = await puppeteer.launch();
const pageDoc = await browserInst.newPage();
await pageDoc.goto('file://local-file', { waitUntil: 'load' });
const pdfParams = {
format: 'A4',
margin: { top: '0', bottom: '20px', left: '20px', right: '20px' }
};
const buffer = await pageDoc.pdf(pdfParams);
console.log('PDF generated');
await browserInst.close();
})();
In my experience, achieving a different margin on the first page compared to subsequent pages using puppeteer meant handling it on the CSS side. I ended up creating a style block with @page rules and specifying a different rule for the first page using the :first pseudo-class. This approach allowed me to set zero margins for the initial page and then apply the required margins for the rest. It did take some testing to ensure that puppeteer processed the CSS paged media directives as expected, but integrating the styles directly into my HTML solved the issue.
An approach I successfully implemented was to generate separate PDFs for the first page and the remaining pages, each with its own settings. I rendered the first page without any margins and, in a subsequent operation, generated a PDF for the rest of the content using the specified margins. After that, I merged the two PDFs using a reliable PDF merging library. Although it adds a step to the process, this method allows complete control over the styling of different sections without relying solely on complex CSS rules, and it works smoothly with puppeteer.
i tried a trick by injecting a custom style in the html. after the first page you can add specific css rules for margins so the first page remains margin free. works decently for my pdf gen, hope it helps!
In my experience, a flexible workaround involved structuring the HTML to differentiate content that appears on the first page from the rest. I wrapped the first page content separately and then applied a container with top and bottom margins only for the following pages. This way, instead of relying entirely on puppeteer settings, I handled layout differences at the markup level. Although it required careful insertion of page-breaks to ensure proper splitting, the method gave me more control over formatting. It may require some tweaking for different content lengths, but it has proven robust enough for a range of documents.
A viable solution is to combine dynamic DOM manipulation with CSS injections to handle page margins based on content location. After the page loads, I used a script to detect where the first page ended and dynamically insert a CSS rule that applies margins only to the following elements. This method avoids the need for separate PDF generations and leverages JavaScript to adjust the printed output on the fly. It required careful calculation of content height and testing, but it granted the flexibility to tailor the margin settings without major changes in the document structure.