How are you generating the PDF, via a parameter in the querystring? Something like index.cfm?page=foo&format=pdf? If you aren't, you could easily add a parameter like that, then in your CFM:

<link href="/css/mainStyleSheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<cfif structKeyExists(url, "format") AND url.format EQ "pdf">
     <link href="/css/pdfStyleSheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</cfif>

pdfStyleSheet.css would contain only the CSS overrides for the PDF.

Answer from Adrian J. Moreno on Stack Overflow
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Parson-europe
parson-europe.com › en › knowledge-base › html-to-pdf-with-css-paged-media
Creating a PDF from HTML: Formatting files with CSS Paged Media
March 14, 2023 - In addition, generating a document via CSS separates content and layout, which increases reusability. Moreover, the print layout can be controlled separately from the screen layout in the CSS via “media queries,” so that only one CSS file is needed for the various output media.
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Oxygen XML
oxygenxml.com › events › 2017 › DITA_OT_Day › Using_CSS_to_style_the_PDF_output.pdf pdf
Using CSS to style the PDF output Presenter: Radu Coravu
https://www.w3.org/TR/css3-page/ @page { padding-top:0.2em; padding-bottom:0.2em; /* Letter */ size: us-letter; margin: 1in; } Copyright @ Syncro Soft, 2014. All rights reserved. Copyright @ Syncro Soft, 2014. All rights reserved. DITA for Software Documentation · DITA for Software Documentation · So what's the difference between padding and · margin? Padding is space inside the border.
Discussions

How to Convert HTML + CSS to PDF
I've used a setup like this previously. Works excellently: https://blog.risingstack.com/pdf-from-html-node-js-puppeteer/ More on reddit.com
🌐 r/Frontend
11
6
July 22, 2020
Using CSS for print media (pdf) - HTML & CSS - SitePoint Forums | Web Development & Design Community
I need to create a bunch of templates for reports that can be displayed on the screen and can also be converted to pdf files so users can print them. I’m decent/average with CSS on the web but have never used it for print. What things do I need to know when using CSS for print? More on sitepoint.com
🌐 sitepoint.com
0
November 13, 2009
So my PDF looks different than the same HTML CSS in website format. Anybody got a clue what might cause this? margin and padding is 0 for both
We'd need a little more info, for example: How is the pdf generated? Is it just a print of the site through the browser? Or is the PDF generated through some js library that takes html/css and generates a pdf? More on reddit.com
🌐 r/webdev
11
0
July 2, 2025
HTML to print pdf CSS - Stack Overflow
I have a simple HTML page that I want to convert to pdf (print mode). I got the Header to repeat in every page but I noticed that the header covers the content in the second page. Any one know how to More on stackoverflow.com
🌐 stackoverflow.com
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Didoesdigital
didoesdigital.com › blog › print-styles
CSS Print Styles for PDFs and Printing · DiDoesDigital
December 2, 2024 - print-css.rocks includes lots of tutorials and resources as well as detailed information about which CSS features and solutions are supported by different command line tools. It’s kind of like the caniuse.com of CSS for PDF tools. Next we’ll look at some print specific styling. The @page at-rule lets you target page styles, such as setting the orientation to landscape or the page size to a common print size like A4: ... To produce a PDF at a given size using a tool like weasyprint, you can create a CSS file just for that format e.g.: ... In this scenario, if index.html includes <link href="main.css" …>, then the main.css styles will come after a5.css.
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ScreenSteps
help.screensteps.com › a › 562262-custom-css-recipes-for-pdf-templates
Custom CSS recipes for PDF templates | PDFs | ScreenSteps
October 23, 2023 - By default images in a PDF document can be up to 4 inches tall. This CSS will change the max-height for the image to 3 inches. ... By default the title page logo has a top margin of 80pt and a maximum height of 100px.
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Michael Thiessen
michaelnthiessen.com › create-beautiful-pdfs-with-html-css-and-markdown
Create Beautiful PDFs with HTML, CSS, and Markdown | Michael Thiessen
Layout — HTML files that use mustache templates to inject the content and metadata from our Markdown files · Styles — CSS that defines how each layout should look · Javascript — A script that generates the table of contents dynamically · Server — Pulls everything together and serves ...
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Joyfill
joyfill.io › blog › creating-pdfs-from-html-css-in-javascript-what-actually-works
Creating PDFs from HTML + CSS in JavaScript: What actually works - Joyfill
October 18, 2025 - PDFs, on the other hand, are static, fixed-layout documents meant for precise print output. The conversion between the two isn’t just a technical challenge—it’s a conceptual mismatch.
Find elsewhere
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PDF Association
pdfa.org › wp-content › uploads › 2025 › 10 › 0-2-16_15-MikeBremford-HTML_and_PDF_Best_of_Frenemies.pdf pdf
HTML vs PDF Where they differ, where they don't, and why it matters
HTML+CSS is the most battle-tested document format in history. If we are to support refl ow in PDF, the most obvious approach is to convert · PDF to HTML, in public or in secret. PDF/UA already takes us half-way. ... • device-cmyk and ICC postponed to css-color-5 and unimplemented in browsers. Only in CSS print engines · • XYZ is a problem in PDF - ICC profi les of input-type XYZ are disallowed. Very unintuitive, will rarely be used ... LCH and Lab are different views of the same color-space.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/frontend › how to convert html + css to pdf
r/Frontend on Reddit: How to Convert HTML + CSS to PDF
July 22, 2020 -

Hello everybody,

I want to build a custom resume (CV) in HTML with CSS, but I want in the end to be able to also send it as a pdf file. Do you have any suggestions on how can I convert a HTML and CSS page to a PDF? I will respect the A4 page size when creating the HTML file.

Thanks in advance! Mihai

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GitHub
github.com › quarto-dev › quarto-cli › discussions › 2538
Is it possible to manipulate the css of PDF files using wkhtmltopdf? · quarto-dev/quarto-cli · Discussion #2538
The css option also works under format.pdf (alongside pdf-engine) in the individual post's frontmatter, which might be useful if you're running off both regular HTML (for a website) and a paged CSS PDF and need different style sheets for both 😊
Author   quarto-dev
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SitePoint
sitepoint.com › html & css
Using CSS for print media (pdf) - HTML & CSS - SitePoint Forums | Web Development & Design Community
November 13, 2009 - I need to create a bunch of templates for reports that can be displayed on the screen and can also be converted to pdf files so users can print them. I’m decent/average with CSS on the web but have never used it for prin…
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Boston University
bu.edu › lernet › artemis › years › 2011 › slides › css.pdf pdf
css.pdf - Cascading Style Sheets
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css"\> Your page should something look like this: Basic Syntax · FORMAT: selector { property: value; } • · selector: what you want styled (e.g. body) • · property: what you want changed (e.g. background) • · value: the new value of that property (e.g. green) • · So you have the thing you want to style followed by a · list of properties and the value for that property · • · This list must be between 2 curly braces ·
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Tech Blog
tech-blog.exxcellent.de › posts › 2024-03-12-html-css-pdf › html-css-pdf
Print PDFs using HTML+CSS | eXXcellent solutions
April 24, 2024 - Flexibility: HTML defines the content structure, while CSS dictates its visual presentation. This separation allows for flexible development workflows. HTML data can be generated in various ways, including templating engines like Mustache or ...
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Folge
folge.me › help › guide › custom-css.html
Folge.me Documentation - PDF Customization using custom CSS
Folge uses HTML and CSS to create and generate PDF documents. App forms HTML document, adds internal CSS styles and then converts it all into a pdf document.
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iText
itextpdf.com › sites › default › files › attachments › pdfHTML_A4_Digital.pdf pdf
Why pdfHTML? Technologies such as HTML and CSS have become commonplace
web browser parses and interprets ... various contents · according to their CSS declarations and the renderer's own settings. A PDF document is not inherently structured and semantic....