How to preserve columns (sections) when exporting to pdf?

[Mathew Wilson[UC Irvine]]

I've tried to edit the stylesheet, but CSS simply isn't in my toolbox... How can I make it so that columns are rendered when exporting to PDF?

Here is my existing stylesheet:

@page  
    {  
    margin: .5in;  
    size: 8.5in 11in;  
    }  
    body,p,li,td,table,tr,.bodytext,.stepfield   
    {  
        font-size: 10pt;  
        /*line-height: 1.1;*/  
        color: #000;  
        font-weight: normal;  
    }

Thanks!

[Steffen Heller]

Do you know the confluencedefaultpdf.css ?

If you scroll down there is a section starting with

/* wraps the section columns underneath each other so they don't run off the page */

What follows is the standard CSS that makes the columns appear underneath each other. I guess you must try to find the CSS that overrides this and turns it all back to normal columns.

I tried a bit but don't fully understand the code and can't provide a more elaborate answer.

[Steffen Heller]

I just found out that I have already been using a workaround myself (my PDF Export Stylesheet is 1.243 lines long so it can happen that I forget and overlook certain things).

This should work:

table.sectionMacro>tbody>tr>td, table.sectionMacroWithBorder>tbody>tr>td {
display: table-cell;
padding: 2px;
border: 1px solid black;
}

The "padding" and "border" is not really needed but helps showing where the columns are. I think I copied that myself but can't remember where.

[Mathew Wilson[UC Irvine]]

Hi, Steffen- thanks for taking a crack at this. Unfortunately, the snippet you provided there didn't change anything in my version of Confluence (5.1.4)

[Eric Dahl]

Did anyone ever figure this out? Pretty much makes Confluence useless for my needs.

[Sean King]

Instead of using Export to PDF you can use File > Print > Save as PDF. This will convert what you're seeing at that moment to PDF.

[Steffen Heller]

Sorry that it doesn't work.

When I create two {columns} inside one {section} and export to PDF I get a page with the columns underneath each other. When I add the above code and do the same the two columns are side by side.

I am using 4.3.7. When it doesn't work for you it must be because of the different versions or because there is some other difference (e.g. how you create the columns?)

[salvatore]

Hi, Mathew. 

As for me, I have seldom tried to preserve columns (sections) when exporting to pdf. I wonder have you ever worked it out? Do I need another 3rd party manual toolkit? When it comes to PDF converting process, I have another question, I wonder have you ever tried to convert pdf to other image files before? As for myself, I am testing the related PDF to PNG converting, PDF to BMP converting , and PDF to JPG converting programs these days.  Do you have experience about it? Any suggestion will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.                  

Best regards, 

Pan