Split html document while maintaining inner tags

Question

I'm working on an e-shop. At some point in my code I have to show attributes and descriptions for many products in a single page.Attributes are a table and description can contain simple text and table,li,br tags etc...These which are stored in the database as html encoded string. So in my php file I load them from the db and decode them like this.

$description=html_entity_decode($description_from_db, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
$attributes=html_entity_decode($attributes_from_db, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');

Later on I just do echo $description; an they are shown properly. All this HAS TO BE PRINTABLE and here comes the challenge.

When the attributes table and the description are long enough the exceed the printable page height and they get cut in half looking realy ugly. What I want to do is split the $description and $attributes strings and echo them with page breaks between the pieces where neccesary. The problem is that this must be done with respect to the tags inside these strings. I can't for example break the string in the middle of a tr tag.

Is there a way to break these strings maintaining the html elements that they contain intact ? I'm thinking it must be possible since html editors show a warning when a tag has been left unclosed.

the whole point is to improve how the document looks when printed — Anonymous, Mar 02 '15 at 19:43
I understand, regretably you don't have any control over that (but see my answer below). You should look at using something like PDF documents. — KIKO Software, Mar 02 '15 at 19:44
I have "invented" a way to insert page breaks when needed in the tags that i write my own. and it works well. if i manage to split these large divs the right way my problem will be solved — Anonymous, Mar 02 '15 at 19:48
You'll have to write something yourself obviously. Nobody can know how you want to break things up. You'll need an HTML parser..that's all anyone can tell you. — developerwjk, Mar 02 '15 at 19:54
I want to break them into as many pieces as possible ! I have no other criteria — Anonymous, Mar 02 '15 at 19:55

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 02 '15 at 19:46

0

You can put page breaks in your HTML code, then the HTML will choose where to break itself:

https://css-tricks.com/almanac/properties/p/page-break

http://davidwalsh.name/css-page-breaks

answered Mar 02 '15 at 19:46

KIKO Software

10,480
2
13
28

I am aware of that. The problem is that I have no control over these strings. They are allready stored by others in the database for 1500 products without printing in mind. So manipulating them in code seems the only way to do it. – Anonymous Mar 02 '15 at 19:53
Well, the only thing you can do then is search for possible locations to put these page-breaks. For instance in a
.
,
and
. But it will be difficult to make it work right all the time. You're the only one who can find out.
– KIKO Software Mar 02 '15 at 21:25

Split html document while maintaining inner tags

1 Answers1