I have created a pdf for a billing application using python's reportlab library. It create a 58mm width pdf of dynamic height as the content changes. When i try to view the pdf it shows me the size accordingly. no extra white spacing is show. But when i try to print it using a 58mm thermal printer I'm not able to print it according to the size of the pdf. It creates more whitespaces which consumes the thermal paper a lot. When i checked for the printer properties it shows size of paper preference as 58 x 210, 58 x 297 and 58 x 3276 only. Can i print this pdf without wasting more paper as it takes dynamic height ? Is there something I'm missing out?
I tried printing but it is consuming more spaces and not getting dynamic height. I tried portrait and landscapes, also i tried size as fit, scale , etc.. but no use.
The thing I was doing was I'll get some list of products from database then I will find how much height it will consume for the products data (it includes product name, price, qty, amount and also sl no in front). The header and the footers I have already made it and it will be static so I will have the height of both of them with me. So now the total height of the pdf will be -> Header (static) + Product Data (Dynamic) + Footer (Static). So if the total height lets say 60mm for display all the 3 things then the output pdf I generate will have 58mm x 60mm.
But the problem was when I try to print it, the printing screen (which shows all the stuff like printer, portrait or landscape, scale, pages) which has my printer page preferences as I mentioned above 58 x 210, 58 x 297 and 58 x 3276 mm are only available, lots of whitespace is shown above and below the content. I tried to print it then i got a lot of whitespace above but not below. So I searched a bit and i found that even if there is lot of whitespace below the content the printer will print only till the content + bottom margin so it won't print 210 or 270 or 3276 mm but only till the content and bottom margin.
After all this research finally I created a pdf in reportlab python set the page as c.setPageSize((58.00, 270)). So the output will be a 270mm height of pdf with content starting from above and lots of whitespace till the end (no whitespace above the content). When I print it it printed only till the content + bottom margin. It didn't took the full height. So guys the printer will stop when it reaches the content + bottom margin height not the full height of PDF file. (This is on Thermal Printer)