How to Preserve CSS Styling When Saving \'pre\' Element as PDF?

Preserving CSS Styling When Saving 'pre' Element as PDF

In the quest to extend syntax highlighting functionality with PDF saving capabilities, a crucial aspect often overlooked is the preservation of CSS styling. While conventional approaches may yield PDFs devoid of vital styling information, there exists a solution that ensures the faithful transfer of CSS attributes.

To answer the query, the key lies in leveraging a combination of web browsing functionalities. By dynamically creating a new browser window, appending the necessary HTML and CSS elements, and invoking print functionality, we can circumvent the limitations imposed by ordinary PDF generation methods.

The following code snippet demonstrates this approach:

<code class="javascript">$("#save").click(function() {
  var text = $("#output")[0].outerHTML;
  var styles = $("style")[0].outerHTML;
  var popup = window.open("", "popup");
  popup.document.body.innerHTML = text + styles;
  popup.focus();
  popup.print();
});</code>

In this code, the click handler captures the HTML contents of the 'pre' element, along with the styling information from the CSS element. A new popup window is created, and the combined HTML and CSS elements are appended to its body. By calling .focus() and .print() on the popup window, we trigger the system's print functionality and open the print dialog. By selecting "Print to file," you can save the output as a PDF with all the original CSS styling intact.

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