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Wide tables may be cut off in PDF export

In Q2 2023 we released an update to PDF export that renders Confluence pages more accurately.

This update enables the use of installed languages without needing to install a custom font. If you’d like to use a custom font continue using the instructions on this page.

You may still see the need for this if PDF export is falling back to the older method of PDF export which may occur with the following:

Even though a page may look great within Confluence, it will end up looking a bit different when exported to a PDF document. The most important change you need to be aware of occurs when you have tables on your page, especially when they contain images.

Why are tables particularly problematic? PDF documents are almost always going to be narrower than your screen width, so we have to try and fit the same amount of content in less space. For most content, this isn’t a huge deal - text just spills onto the next line.

However, rows within tables can’t do that - they have to stay as one unbroken row! When you have unbreakable content in a table, like images, there is a chance that it might get cut off because it won’t fit any more.

What can I do to make sure my tables don’t get cut off?

The easiest way to get around this is to try and keep your tables narrow. Here are a few things you can try:

  • Resize your images to be a bit smaller when they’re inside a table.

  • Invert the rows and columns so that your table gets taller rather than getting wider. As an example:

First name

Last name

D.O.B

Hair color

Eye color

Shirt size

John

Doe

30 Dec 2017

Black

Brown

Medium

First name

John

Last name

Doe

D.O.B

30 Dec 2017

Hair color

Black

Eye color

Brown

Shirt size

Medium

Customize exports to PDF

Using a combination of HTML and CSS, each space in your Confluence instance can have its own customized export.

Another option to try is printing to pdf in landscape mode via your browser print command.

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