Can I force a page break in HTML printing?

Question

I'm making a HTML report that is going to be printable, and it has "sections" that should start in a new page.

Is there any way to put something in the HTML/CSS that will signal to the browser that it needs to force a page break (start a new page) at that point?

I don't need this to work in every browser out there, I think I can tell people to use a specific set of browsers in order to print this.

Answer 1

Add a CSS class called "pagebreak" (or "pb"), like so:

@media print {
    .pagebreak { page-break-before: always; } /* page-break-after works, as well */
}

Then add an empty DIV tag (or any block element that generates a box) where you want the page break.

<div class="pagebreak"> </div>

It won't show up on the page, but will break up the page when printing.

P.S. Perhaps this only applies when using -after (and also what else you might be doing with other <div>s on the page), but I found that I had to augment the CSS class as follows:

@media print {
    .pagebreak {
        clear: both;
        page-break-after: always;
    }
}

Answer 2

Try this link

<style>
@media print
{
h1 {page-break-before:always}
}
</style>

Answer 3

You can use the CSS property page-break-before (or page-break-after). Just set page-break-before: always on those block-level elements (e.g., heading, div, p, or table elements) that should start on a new line.

For example, to cause a line break before any 2nd level heading and before any element in class newpage (e.g., <div class=newpage>...), you would use

h2, .newpage { page-break-before: always }

Answer 4

Just wanted to put an update. page-break-after is a legacy property now.

Official page states

This property has been replaced by the break-after property.

Answer 5

This doesn't seem to work on my site. I am putting out the div tag with the page-break class after x number of divs have been output so that the printed page will 'break' cleanly. And yes - I have checked and re-checked my code and viewed the source page in my browser.

Answer 6

@Chris Doggett makes perfect sense. Although, I found one funny trick on lvsys.com, and it actually works on firefox and chrome. Just put this comment anywhere you want the page-break to be inserted. You can also replace the <p> tag with any block element.

<p><!-- pagebreak --></p>