additional options in Chrome headless print-to-pdf

Question

I need help one more time. I am trying to print a page to pdf using headless feature of the chrome. However, header and footer is present in the pdf. I found that this option as been implemented in Devtools.

https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools-protocol/tot/Page/#method-printToPDF

However, i can't find how can i use these options in CLI. Also is it possible to invoke the Devtools from selenium?

Additionally how can i invoke Page.PrintToPDF in Dev tools. I tried to run the command in Console. It is showing Page is undefined.

Answer 1

Add this CSS to the page your creating into a PDF to remove Chrome Headless's implemented Header and Footer.

CSS:

@media print {
  @page { margin: 0; }
  body { margin: 1.6cm; }
}

You should format your command like below to create the PDF:

"C:\PATH\TO\CHROME\EXECUTABLE\FILE", "--headless","--disable-gpu","--print-to-pdf=" + directory path to where you want the file to go followed by the desired file name/fileName.pdf,"--no-margins", "the path to the file you want turned into a pdf"

Example 1:

C:\chrome-win/chrome --headless --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf=C:\user\fileName.pdf --no-margins C:\Projects\index.html

Example 2:

You can also test this functionality by navigating in your command line to the folder containing Chrome executable file, and running this command:

chrome --headless --disable-gpu --print-to-pdf https://www.chromestatus.com/

Answer 2

"/path/to/google-chrome" : This is the path of Google Chrome.

'--headless' : Chrome browser in a headless environment without the full browser UI

'--run-all-compositor-stages-before-draw' : It Prevents the Pdf Creation Before all the data is rendered(After all data is rendered the pdf will be created).

'--virtual-time-budget = x: It Delays the Process of creation of Pdf, here x will be the miliseconds.

'--print-to-pdf' : This Flag creates the pdf of the given Url.

URL : The url of webpage.

PDF Page Formatting (Using CSS) Adding this(to css files):

 @media print {
            @page { margin: 0mm 0mm 0mm 0mm;
            size:8in 9.5in;
            }
            }

The Above CSS code has no effect on the Webpage Rendering,But effect on the formatting of page in PDF only.

Answer 3

If you need to print a page to PDF using Chrome (or Edge), without header and footer, there is an additional command line option: --no-pdf-header-footer. Another option --print-to-pdf-no-header can still be used, though it is now deprecated.

For a comprehensive list of all command line options, there is: https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/

Answer 4

Yes this media query needs to be added if you want to download the webpage as pdf. Reference Media Print CSS https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media

Page CSS https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@page

Answer 5

The functionality behind the --no-pdf-header-footer flag was previously available via the --print-to-pdf-no-header flag. Depending on which Chrome version you’re using, you might need to fall back to the old flag name.

For updated versions of chrome after new headless chrome update (dated Feb 2023).

Answer 6

The CLI switches are indeed documented. First, for the original/classic chrome headless, they're at https://developer.chrome.com/blog/headless-chrome/#command-line-features.
For the "new" engine (since 2021, accessed with --headless=new), its switches are at https://developer.chrome.com/articles/new-headless/#headless-specific-command-line-flags.