Overview

PDF output is produced by rendering the document as HTML with print media styles enabled. Theme tokens in pages.css and module-level @media print rules define page size, margins, headers/footers, and print-specific styling.

This translation happens whenever you create a PDF with Stencila, for example using the CLI's render command:

stencila render report.smd report.pdf

Paged Media Tokens

Paged media tokens come from pages.css and are documented here. These tokens map directly into CSS @page rules that are respected by the PDF renderer.

Page Size and Margins

Tokens	PDF output
`--page-width`, `--page-height`	`@page` size
`--page-margin-*`	Page margins
`--page-padding-*`	Padding between content and margin boxes

Header/Footer (Margin Boxes)

Tokens	PDF output
`--page-top--content`, `--page-bottom--content`	Margin box content
`--page-margin-font-family`, `--page-margin-font-size`	Margin box typography
`--page-margin-color`, `--page-margin-line-height`	Margin box text styles
`--page-border-*`	Header/footer rules

First-Page Overrides

Tokens	PDF output
`--page1-*`	First-page margin box overrides

Print Variants

Component modules include @media print variants (e.g. tables, figures, code) to adjust styling specifically for PDF/print output. Where available, *-print tokens are used to override screen defaults for print.

Implementation Notes

The PDF renderer uses print media and honors @page rules (see html_to_png.rs).

Paged media tokens live in pages.css and are documented in site/docs/themes/tokens/print.smd.