# PDF

> How a PDF is made by printing the exported document, the print settings to leave alone, and what to do when the button is off or the result is wrong.

Rejarsume makes a PDF by printing, not by drawing the page again. This is on
purpose, and it is the reason the PDF has real text that a parser can read.

## Making one

1. Choose **Export**, then **PDF**.
2. The browser's print dialog opens. Choose “Save as PDF” as the destination.
3. Leave the scale and the margins as they are, then save.

The hint under **PDF** in the menu says the same thing. The scale and margins
matter because the pages were measured at the real paper size with margins set in
the Style tab. If the dialog adds its own margin or shrinks the page to fit, the
content area is no longer the one the page breaks were worked out for.

## What is printed

What is printed is the same document the **HTML** export writes: the layout, your
CSS, the fonts and the images, all inside it, and the page breaks the paper
measured, already placed into pages. It is written into a hidden frame, printed
and thrown away, so nothing about the editor's state, such as the zoom or the
drag handles, can reach the page.

That is why the PDF matches the paper. It is the paper, printed. See
[How Rejarsume works](https://shopsalone.com/en/docs/getting-started/how-rejarsume-works.md).

## Why not a PDF library

A browser is the only thing that turns HTML and CSS into a PDF with real, selectable
text. A library would either take a picture of the page, which destroys the text
layer a parser reads, or lay the document out with its own engine, so the PDF
would stop being the thing that was measured.

The one thing this leaves is the print dialog itself. Its choices belong to your
browser and your system, not to Rejarsume, and they can differ between browsers.

## When it does not work

- **PDF** is off, or greyed. It waits until the paper has been laid out, because
  it uses the page breaks the paper measured. On a narrow screen, open the
  **Paper** tab once, then try again. See [The editor](https://shopsalone.com/en/docs/editor/overview.md).
- Pages break somewhere other than on the paper. Check that the dialog's scale
  and margins have been left as they are, and that nothing is set to shrink the
  page to fit.
- The wrong font. A font you uploaded is embedded, but if it was deleted the
  resume prints in a fallback face. See [Images and fonts](https://shopsalone.com/en/docs/design/images-and-fonts.md).
- Nothing happens when you cancel the dialog. That is not an error, and there is
  no way for Rejarsume to tell it apart from a print that finished.

If the export itself cannot be built, a short message appears beside the
**Export** button.