Auto Pagination / Page Breaks

[Gazook89]

Your idea:

It would be nice to not need manual page breaks-- the document should automatically determine where page breaks are needed and create a new page. Manual page breaks would still be allowed.

An example of a web document editor that manages to do this is Google Docs.

Likely, some method of calculating the height of elements and determining when that total height is greater than the page/container height, and then splitting the last element that overflows into a new page/container. Calculating heights of whole elements is likely "easy", but a library would likely be needed for calculating exactly where to split the text node of the last element.

Or, a library to handle it all (paged.js).

There are likely a million edge cases where this will have poor results. But I think it's worth a try at some point, if for no other reason than to have a good answer when someone else asks for it.

[5e-Cleric]

issue #66 was the original tracker, but it is abandoned and contains no additional information.

[dbolack-ab]

I want to look into this after the #3870 and the Master Pages PRs ( if included ) are merged.

[dbolack-ab]

A set of supporting questions:

Assuming we implement soft page breaks (breaks that are determined by code, not by user declaration)

1. Do we want to insert a symbol or decoration into the editor at the position of a soft-break?
   a. Should this be a full symbol ( \spage followed by any page parameters from the parent ) with the same or alternate decoration as \page as a full line
   b. Should this be a single symbol insert - such as a Form Feed icon - with decoration?
2. Do we want a facility where the user may request that the editor convert all of those soft page breaks into hard page breaks ( presumably by duplicating the \page line from the parent/previous page?
   a. Should this be an automatic process?
   b. Should this be guided much like a global search-and-replace with a "yes/no" prompt

[5e-Cleric]

1: yes, but i don't love a or b, not sure

2: i had not though of that but it is a good idea.
a. i think not, could be a nightmare, manual decision is key
b. unsure, i think we could add a checkbox to enable/disable this feature completely or only the suggestions/ability to turn into hard break

[G-Ambatte]

1. Yes, option b, with the option to not display in the editor

2. No. The user can manually insert hard breaks if they want, but I see only downsides in having a process to convert soft to hard.