Tiptap Pagination (Problems & Solutions*)

https://romikmakavana.me/tiptap

Introduction

If you are here then, you have implemented pagination or you’re willing too implement. First let me clear one thing Tiptap is Rich Text Editor. So, use it with some limits, therefore some of use trying to do out of that line, to use that for another purpose.

Here I will explain you, why developers are stuck with Tiptap Pagination at some points.

Updated: I have reached to solution.

Tiptap Pagination — Complete Solution

What you will see…

1. Understand Pagination
2. Problems
3. Examples
4. Solutions
5. Open Source Code

Understand Pagination

To understand pagination problem in tiptap, you first have to understand, how Tiptap is working.

HTML is build with tags with hierarchical structure, different tags with different purpose. Same way tiptap is collection of extensions with herarchical structure.

You can think, its easy to implement pagination in list structure, but hard for hierarchical structure.

Notes : When extension used inside tiptap editor content it is called Node.

Tiptap uses “Doc” node as root, and all other nodes can be placed inside that.

So, as per open source tiptap pagination break code, there is simple logic implemented

1. Get the direct child nodes of the Doc node, means list of all the second level nodes
2. Then calculate height of each nodes once by one, and append it to current page.
3. If page does not have size to add node, then place it of next page

But there are problems, To understand it better I have divided all problems below with examples.

Problems

1. Break Paragraph (node with no child node dependency)

We have to break paragraph from exact position, when it is last of current page, but does not fit with page height.

If height of last paragraph nodes is more than available page height we have to break. like Google Doc.

• To break paragraph we have to calculate width of each character and get exact index from where it breaks, but there is problem, In browser each char does have different width. Example : lll & www
• User can give any font-size to character, word, line or paragraph.
• Then there is line-height, bold, emoji, inline node (mention).

So, it is impossible to get exact position with HTML, Only solution is just move whole paragraph to next page.
It is good solution right, better than having wrong paragraph break. but there is major issue.

What if your last paragraph height more than your original page size, your page hight will not be maintained.

2. Break Table (node with collection of child nodes)

Table extension is build using TableCell, TableRow & TableHeader.

If table is last node of current page, then we have to break it or move it to next page. To break it have to divide row to create two table, first for current page and second for next page to render.

But what if

• there is row cells are merged.
• there is table inside table.

So, if child nodes are used in list structure then its easy to divide
But, it is hard to divide when it has herarchical structure.

Here are the extension list we will face problem for child node dependency

• Table (Can divide row, but hard if table inside table)
• Bullet List (easy for single level, but hard with it has nested)
• Details, Code Block, Order List, Task List, etc…..

All these are official tiptap extension to handle.

3. Process of calculating Page Breaks

Now, we understand the problem not getting exact page break. What if we try to handle each node, to page break.

As, I think if you have requirement to implement pagination, there is long content. now think we hav to perform the same page break calculation on each user integration like.. click, change, focus, drag…..

Sometimes, nested level page break calculations are expensive in terms of cpu process, because we performs it in clint system.

Examples : 1

https://pagination-demo-ashy.vercel.app/

This is an open source editor, with great pagination work. but here are the stuck points.

There is same issue with, how you divided Page, miss placement of paragraph and padding issue for page area, let me give you details with screenshots.

1. Paragraph should be should right after previous node, it’s not working

2. If content is longer than page then it should break content to next page but you have added just absolute position blank area

• Issue : line gets disappear below the absolute blank div(line area).
• Page does not have proper blank area on top/bottom (padding)

Example : 2

https://www.badon.app/
This is an open source editor, with excellent pagination work.
Also, this editor resolved issue of processing and performance.

But Still there is some issue with Table, when we merge cell, let me explain in detail.

1. I have added table and placed at the end of page it is splits in page properly

2. But when I merge cell there is issue.

• First cell is getting over footer, and expected space.
• Reason : We have to break child nodes to properly distribute between pages

Solutions

Based on the analysis of pagination challenges in TipTap editor, we can draw several key conclusions:

• Moving entire content blocks to next page is often better than incorrect breaks
• Special handling required for different node types
• Need for careful consideration of performance vs. accuracy trade-offs
• Need for more robust solutions for complex content structures
• Potential for optimization in page break calculations
• Consideration of server-side processing for heavy calculations

The implementation of pagination in TipTap requires careful consideration of content structure, performance implications, and user experience. While there are existing open-source solutions, they may need customization based on specific use cases and content requirements.

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Open Source Code

GitHub - hugs7/tiptap-extension-pagination: An extension for the Tiptap editor allowing for…

GitHub - todorstoev/prosemirror-pagination: Plugin for ProseMirror emulating A4 pages

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