Printing

Printing a Diagram is typically accomplished by making several images of the Diagram and either saving them, inserting them into a PDF or other document, or printing them directly from the browser. On this page we will create several images out of a large Diagram and prepare some CSS so that printing this page prints only those images.

This page uses Diagram.makeSvg, which has its own introduction page: Making Images with GoJS.

Depending on your situation, you may want to use raster images to print instead, and there is also a page on Making Images with GoJS, which is nearly identical to making images. In this page's examples you could substitute Diagram.makeImage for the same result.

Below is the Diagram we are going to prepare for print.

Our code for print preparation contains a generateImages function that cuts the Diagram into several images of a given width and height. On this page it is called by default with (700, 960), but the width and height can be modified dynamically with HTML inputs below. 


    // if width or height are below 50, they are set to 50
    function generateImages(width, height) {
      // sanitize input
      width = parseInt(width);
      height = parseInt(height);
      if (isNaN(width)) width = 100;
      if (isNaN(height)) height = 100;
      // Give a minimum size of 50x50
      width = Math.max(width, 50);
      height = Math.max(height, 50);

      var imgDiv = document.getElementById('myImages');
      imgDiv.innerHTML = ''; // clear out the old images, if any
      var db = myDiagram.documentBounds;
      var boundswidth = db.width;
      var boundsheight = db.height;
      var imgWidth = width;
      var imgHeight = height;
      var p = db.position;
      for (let i = 0; i < boundsheight; i += imgHeight) {
        for (let j = 0; j < boundswidth; j += imgWidth) {
          var img = myDiagram.makeSvg({
            scale: 1,
            position: new go.Point(p.x + j, p.y + i),
            size: new go.Size(imgWidth, imgHeight)
          });
          // Append the new HTMLImageElement to the #myImages div
          img.className = 'images';
          imgDiv.appendChild(img);
          imgDiv.appendChild(document.createElement('br'));
        }
      }
    }

    var button = document.getElementById('makeSVG');
    button.addEventListener('click', () => {
      var width = parseInt(document.getElementById('widthInput').value);
      var height = parseInt(document.getElementById('heightInput').value);
      generateImages(width, height);
    }, false);

    // Call it with some default values
    generateImages(700, 960);

We want to show nothing but the images when this HTML page is printed, so we must use CSS rules to hide all page elements except the images themselves and the DOM parents of the images leading up to the body (#content, #myImages).

With the CSS below, printing this page will give yield nothing but the generated images that have been added to the end of this page. Typically the image or images used for printing may be hidden from the user completely, except when printing, or else added to a separate page in a new window. 


/* @media print specifies CSS rules that only apply when printing */
@media print {
  /* CSS reset to clear styles for printing */
  html, body, div {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    border: 0;
    font-size: 100%;
    font: inherit;
    vertical-align: baseline;
  }

  /* Hide everything on the page */
  body * {
    display: none;
  }

  #content, #myImages, #myImages * {
    /* Only display the images we want printed */
    /* all of the image's parent divs
       leading up to the body must be un-hidden (displayed) too
    */
    display: block;
    /* CSS reset to clear the specific visible divs for printing */
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    border: 0;
    font-size: 100%;
    font: inherit;
    vertical-align: baseline;
  }

  /* We have line breaks in the DIV
     to separate the images in the browser,
     but do not want those line breaks when printing
  */
  #myImages br {
    display: none;
  }

  img {
    /* Only some browsers respect this rule: */
    page-break-inside: avoid;
    /* Almost all browsers respect this rule: */
    page-break-after:always;
  }
}

/* The @page rules specify additional printing directives that browsers may respect
   Here we suggest printing in landscape (instead of portrait) with a small margin.
   Browsers, however, are free to ignore or override these suggestions.
   See also:
    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/@page
    https://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-page/#at-page-rule
*/
@page {
  /* Some browsers respect rules such as size: landscape */
  margin: 1cm;
}

The images at the end of this page are generated by calling generateImages(700, 960). Using the inputs below the images can be replaced with those of a different size. Different papers, page orientations, and margins will require different sized images if they are to fill the paper, and (700, 960) is a suggested size for 8.5 inch by 11 paper in portrait orientation, with minimal margins.

Width: Height: