[RESOLVED] Page break for every 5 records (when printing)

TommyTom

Hi all,
I have this print version below. Can anyone explain me how to add a page break for every 5 records? Thanks and regards.

<?php require_once('db.php'); ?>
<?php
mysql_select_db($database_db, $db);
$query_result = "SELECT * FROM books";
$result = mysql_query($query_result, $db) or die(mysql_error());
$row_result = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
$totalRows_result = mysql_num_rows($result);
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>

<body>
<table border="0">
  <tr>
    <td>ID</td>
    <td>author_first</td>
    <td>author_last</td>
    <td>title</td>
    <td>publisher</td>
    <td>year</td>
    <td>ISBN</td>
    <td>subject</td>
  </tr>
  <?php do { ?>
  <tr>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['ID']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['author_first']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['author_last']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['title']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['publisher']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['year']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['ISBN']; ?></td>
    <td><?php echo $row_result['subject']; ?></td>
  </tr>
  <?php } while ($row_result = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)); ?>
</table>
</body>
</html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($result);
?>

johanafm

First off, I have absolutely no idea what browsers actually support this CSS attribute, and implements it properly. I believe FF 3.5 does, but if this is supposed to be used in any other browser, you should definitely test it.

Assuming you want your first table row to be a table header and not a table row, you will need to adjust the markup accordingly. HTML markup is about semantics, not presentation.

<style type="text/css" media="print">
.breakAfter {
	page-break-after: always
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table>
	<thead>
		<tr>
			<th>ID</th><th>author_first</th>
		</tr>
	</thead>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>1</td><td>John</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>20</td><td>Jane</td>
		</tr>
		<tr class="breakAfter">
			<td>8</td><td>Anthony</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>14</td><td>Lucy</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

TommyTom

johanafm > Thanks. This part I will implement, but first I have to get php to loop through the recordset, and for each 5 records add some element like a <div> or <hr> or <tr> to style with the break-after-rule. Its with the php-loop part I need a helping hand 🙂

johanafm

First off, I'd remove the initial fetch_assoc() (in the first few lines of code) and use a while loop rather than a do while. Otherwise you can end up with an empty result set that generate one error per td.


$i = 0;
echo '<tbody><tr>';
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc()) {
	if ($i && $i % 5 == 0)
		echo '</tr><tr class="breakAfter">';
	else if ($i)
		echo '</tr><tr>';
	++$i;
	// echo the tds and their data.
}
echo '</tr></tbody></table>';

TommyTom

johanafm > Thanks again.
This is what I end up with - the php is working smoothly and the page break is showing nicely in Firefox :rolleyes:

<?php require_once('db.php'); ?>
<?php 
mysql_select_db($database_db, $db); 
$query_result = "SELECT * FROM books"; 
$result = mysql_query($query_result, $db) or die(mysql_error()); 
$row_result = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); 
$totalRows_result = mysql_num_rows($result); 
?> 
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 
<html> 
<head> 
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> 
<title>PrintTest</title>
<style type="text/css" media="print">
.breakAfter{
page-break-after: always;
}
</style>
</head> 

<body> 
<table border="0"> 
  <thead>
  <tr> 
    <td>ID</td> 
    <td>author_first</td> 
    <td>author_last</td> 
    <td>title</td> 
    <td>publisher</td> 
    <td>year</td> 
    <td>ISBN</td> 
    <td>subject</td> 
  </tr>
  </thead> 
<?php 
  	$i = 0; 
	echo '<tbody><tr>'; 
	while($row_result = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { 
    if ($i && $i % 5 == 0) 
        echo '</tr><tr class="breakAfter">'; 
    else if ($i) 
        echo '</tr><tr>'; 
    ++$i;
    // echo the tds and their data. 
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['materialID']; echo "</td>";
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['author_first']; echo "</td>";
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['author_last']; echo "</td>";
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['title']; echo "</td>";
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['publisher']; echo "</td>";
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['year']; echo "</td>";
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['ISBN']; echo "</td>";
    echo "<td>"; echo $row_result['subject']; echo "</td>";
} 
echo '</tr></tbody>'; 
?>
</table>
</body>
</html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($result);
?>

TommyTom

One little issue: The first page to print has 6 records 😕 - all pages after this has 5 records - the last page has between 1 and 5 records. Can anybody tell me how to fix the first page?

And FYI: According to w3school "the page-break-after property is supported in all major browsers". I have tested on a MAC. In Camino (1.5) its working, in Firefox (3.5) its working, but in Safari (4.0) its not working.

johanafm

Either change the css attribute to page-break-before, or change the if check to $i%5-1 == 0.

halojoy

One little issue: The first page to print has 6 records - all pages after this has 5 records - the last page has between 1 and 5 records. Can anybody tell me how to fix the first page?

Change the counter $i to start at '1'

<?php
      $i = 1; // initial count value = 1
    echo '<tbody><tr>';
    while($row_result = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {

johanafm

If you go with halojoy's solution, you'd also need to change

if ($i &&

if ($i > 1 &&

TommyTom

johanafm > Thank you for your help all the way - it is very appreciated. I set the page-break-before and everything is working now - thanks.
halojoy > Thanks a lot for the input.

TommyTom

Just found out that first record in the recordset is being skipped 😕 - can anybody tell me how to fix that?

johanafm

johanafm;10941058 wrote:
First off, I'd remove the initial fetch_assoc() (in the first few lines of code) and use a while loop rather than a do while. Otherwise you can end up with an empty result set that generate one error per td.

I'm guessing you still have mysql_fetch_assoc sometime before the while loop.

TommyTom

johanafm > Thanks once again. You are right of course. After removing this part:

$row_result = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

...from the first few lines of code, everything is playing nicely. Thanks a ton 🙂