Paper size

Proposal. Include a hint as to ideal size of paper in addition to the
viewPort specification

 

Eg <svg width="100%" height="100%" paper="A4"

 

Rationale

 

Like many people with svg, I print SVG via a browser, and either show
the svg native, or embedded as an object in XHTML.  Because of that, I
pretty much always use the "100%" width and height, so that the graphic
fills the object space, or the browser print-out.

 

If one uses, say for A4 paper, width="297mm" height="210mm" it displays
badly on a browser monitor.

 

At the moment, the user agent is without a paper size hint when it
prints.

 

Hence my suggestion that a hint is added that indicates the intended
paper size.  Then if the user views in via browser, or on paper, the
user-agent can give the user more nearly what they want.

 

The relevant part of the SVG Print Spec is


5.1.2 Using percentage of viewport sizing 


If the SVG image size is specified as a percentage value, it is
considered to be a percentage of the available viewport. In such cases,
the SVG Print device chooses the default paper size. 

 

Andrew Main