If a Puppeteer PDF header or footer is missing, first enable it: displayHeaderFooter: true. Then provide a non-empty headerTemplate and/or footerTemplate HTML string, and reserve space with top or bottom margins. Puppeteer keeps headers and footers disabled by default, so a valid template alone is not enough.
The minimal fix
Start with a deliberately simple template and explicit margins. Puppeteer supports the special classes date, title, url, pageNumber, and totalPages; it replaces those elements with document values when the PDF is generated.
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com', { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' });
await page.pdf({
path: 'output.pdf',
displayHeaderFooter: true,
headerTemplate: '<div class="header"><span class="title"></span></div>',
footerTemplate: '<div class="footer"><span class="pageNumber"></span> / <span class="totalPages"></span></div>',
margin: {
top: '60px',
bottom: '60px'
}
});
await browser.close();The margin values are starting points, not universal measurements. Increase them if your template is clipped or overlaps page content; decrease them only after checking the rendered PDF.
Check the template itself
Use the correct option names
The options are case-sensitive. The switch is displayHeaderFooter, not displayHeaderAndFooter. The strings are headerTemplate and footerTemplate. A typo, an empty string, or a variable that is undefined produces a PDF without the expected content.
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Keep the first diagnostic markup simple
Begin with plain text and the documented value classes. For example:
headerTemplate: '<div>Invoice</div>',
footerTemplate: '<div>Page <span class="pageNumber"></span> of <span class="totalPages"></span></div>'Once that appears, add your layout and styling incrementally. The PDF options document HTML templates and the supported injected-value classes, but it does not promise that arbitrary page styles, external stylesheets, or external assets will be available inside the template. Treat those dependencies as variables to verify rather than as guaranteed behavior.
Use the special classes exactly
dateinserts the generated date.titleinserts the document title.urlinserts the page URL.pageNumberinserts the current page number.totalPagesinserts the total page count.
The same classes are supported in the footer. They are intended for the template, not as a general-purpose data-binding system for arbitrary variables.
Reserve space so content does not cover the header or footer
If margin is omitted, Puppeteer documents that no margins are set. A header can therefore render outside the usable content area or collide with the first line of the page. Set at least the relevant side explicitly:
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margin: {
top: '72px',
bottom: '54px',
left: '36px',
right: '36px'
}There is no single correct margin. Match the value to the template’s actual height, font size, and line wrapping. Inspect several pages, including pages where the body starts with a large heading or an image. A margin that works on page one can still be too small when a header wraps.
Resolve page-size and CSS precedence
Unexpected clipping can come from competing paper-size declarations rather than from the template. Puppeteer applies these rules:
| Layout choice | What controls the paper size | Important precedence |
|---|---|---|
format |
A named paper format | format takes precedence over width and height. |
width and height |
Explicit dimensions | They are ignored when format is also supplied. |
CSS @page |
Your stylesheet’s page rule | It wins when preferCSSPageSize: true. |
| Default CSS-page preference | Puppeteer paper settings | With preferCSSPageSize: false (the default), Puppeteer scales content to fit the selected paper size. |
Choose one source of truth while diagnosing. Remove a conflicting format, check the supplied dimensions, or enable preferCSSPageSize when the CSS @page rule is intentionally authoritative.
Account for print media and color changes
page.pdf() generates using the print CSS media type. Rules inside @media print can therefore hide, resize, or restyle elements compared with the browser window you inspected. If the design should use screen media instead, set it before generating the PDF:
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await page.emulateMediaType('screen');
await page.pdf({
path: 'screen-styled.pdf',
displayHeaderFooter: true,
headerTemplate: '<div><span class="title"></span></div>',
footerTemplate: '<div><span class="pageNumber"></span> / <span class="totalPages"></span></div>',
margin: { top: '60px', bottom: '60px' }
});Print output can also adjust colors. When exact colors matter, Puppeteer documents the CSS property -webkit-print-color-adjust for requesting the intended color treatment. Apply it in the page styles and verify the resulting PDF rather than assuming screen colors will carry over unchanged.
Use a complete, controlled generation sequence
A reliable script makes the order of operations explicit: load the page, select the media type, then call page.pdf() with the display switch, templates, margins, and one page-size strategy.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
try {
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com/report', {
waitUntil: 'networkidle0'
});
// Omit this line to use the documented print media default.
await page.emulateMediaType('screen');
await page.pdf({
path: 'report.pdf',
displayHeaderFooter: true,
headerTemplate: [
'<div style="width:100%; font-size:9px; padding:0 24px;">',
'<span class="title"></span>',
'</div>'
].join(''),
footerTemplate: [
'<div style="width:100%; font-size:9px; padding:0 24px; text-align:right;">',
'Page <span class="pageNumber"></span> of ',
'<span class="totalPages"></span>',
'</div>'
].join(''),
margin: {
top: '64px',
bottom: '48px',
left: '24px',
right: '24px'
},
format: 'A4'
});
} finally {
await browser.close();
}
})();If your stylesheet defines a deliberate CSS @page size, replace the format choice with preferCSSPageSize: true and remove the competing paper-size settings.
A diagnostic sequence for a missing or broken template
- Confirm the switch. Log or inspect the options object and verify that
displayHeaderFooteris the booleantrue. - Confirm the selected property. Make sure the header HTML is in
headerTemplateand the footer HTML is infooterTemplate, with a non-empty string in the property you expect to render. - Reduce the markup. Replace the design with one plain
divand one documented special class. This separates template rendering from CSS, fonts, images, and JavaScript. - Add space. Set explicit top and bottom margins. If the header appears but is cut off, increase the corresponding margin and regenerate.
- Check paper-size conflicts. Decide whether
format, explicit dimensions, or CSS@pageshould control the page. - Check media rules. Review
@media printand trypage.emulateMediaType('screen')only when screen styling is the intended result. - Inspect the PDF itself. Do not rely only on a browser preview. Check the first page, a middle page, and the last page for wrapping, overlap, and page-number values.
Common symptoms, causes to check, and fixes
| Symptom | Check first | Practical fix |
|---|---|---|
| No header or footer at all | displayHeaderFooter is absent or false; the template property is empty or misspelled. |
Set the switch to true and use a non-empty HTML string. |
| Page numbers are blank | The class name differs from pageNumber or totalPages. |
Use the documented class names exactly and inspect the generated PDF. |
| Header overlaps body content | No top margin, or the margin is shorter than the rendered header. | Add or increase margin.top. |
| Footer is clipped | No bottom margin, a wrapped footer, or insufficient paper space. | Add or increase margin.bottom; simplify the footer while testing. |
Layout changes after adding format |
format overrides width and height. |
Keep one page-size strategy and remove conflicting settings. |
| CSS page size is ignored | preferCSSPageSize remains false. |
Set preferCSSPageSize: true when the CSS @page rule should win. |
| Template styling differs from the page | The template depends on styles or assets that are not available to it. | Use simple inline diagnostic styling, then add dependencies one at a time and verify each output. |
| Colors differ from the browser | PDF generation uses print media and print color handling. | Review print CSS, consider emulateMediaType('screen'), and use -webkit-print-color-adjust where exact colors are required. |
Fonts, loading, and repeatability
Puppeteer’s PDF guide states that Page.pdf() waits for fonts to load by default. That is useful, but it does not prove that a font issue explains a missing template. If typography is wrong, inspect the generated file and the page’s actual font and CSS inputs. Keep navigation and PDF generation in a consistent sequence, and avoid changing media type or page-size settings between diagnostic runs unless you are testing that specific variable.
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Or skip the browser setup
When you need a clean page capture or PDF rather than control over Puppeteer’s template HTML, ScreenshotNeo provides a single website-screenshot API request. It accepts the cookie or consent banner like a visitor, then removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before the capture. You can turn each cleanup step off. Bot checks and CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed; the response identifies the result with X-Page-Verdict and X-Billed headers. It also offers an MCP server for AI agents, including Claude and Cursor, with take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf tools.
Use the API call shown in the ScreenshotNeo documentation:
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpThe same request in Python:
import requests
r = requests.get(
"https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot",
params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"},
timeout=90,
)
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)And in Node.js:
const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can I put ordinary HTML headers inside the page body instead of using headerTemplate?
Yes, but that is a different layout approach. Puppeteer’s repeating PDF header and footer mechanism is controlled by displayHeaderFooter together with headerTemplate and footerTemplate; body HTML will follow normal document flow and will not use the injected page-number classes.
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Why does a template work on one URL but not another?
The template is generated during PDF creation, while the page can supply different print CSS, page-size rules, fonts, and content heights. Compare the two URLs with the same PDF options and reduce the template to plain HTML to isolate the differing input.
Do headers and footers require a separate PDF page for every section?
No. A single headerTemplate and footerTemplate are applied by the PDF generation options, with pageNumber and totalPages available for pagination values.
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