[archived] RockPdf - mPDF helper module

[bernhard]

1 hour ago, dragan said:

Yeah... using inline SVGs works just fine... until you want to style fills or strokes via CSS.

Yeah, I also had this problem. I managed to style the icon using inline styles (doing that manually first), eg <path fill=red ... > but I couldn't find a way to control the size of the icon. I tried several approches. I even used the SVG as <img src=...> but then the coloring part didn't work any more. TTF now works find for both situations except for duotone icons (which would be nice but not necessary).

1 hour ago, dragan said:

I have the fonts both in site/templates/fonts/ as well as in site/assets/RockPDF/fonts/. I have now also placed them in site/modules/RockPdf/vendor/mpdf/mpdf/ttfonts, cleared modules cache, but the error persists.

Please follow the new readme exactly, I'm using the font https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/rock-salt successfully in my PDF:

This is my setup for this font + fontawesome pro:

    /** @var RockPdf $pdf */
    $pdf = $this->modules->get('RockPdf');
    $pdf->settings([
      'mode' => 'utf-8',
      'format' => 'A3-L',
      'dpi' => 300,
      'img_dpi' => 300,

      // fonts
      'fontdata' => (new \Mpdf\Config\FontVariables())->getDefaults()['fontdata'] + [
        'fancy' => [
          'R' => 'RockSalt.ttf',
          'I' => 'RockSalt.ttf',
        ],
        "fab" => [
          'R' => "fa-brands-400.ttf",
          'I' => "fa-brands-400.ttf",
        ],
        "fad" => [
          'R' => "fa-duotone-900.ttf",
          'I' => "fa-duotone-900.ttf",
        ],
        "fal" => [
          'R' => "fa-light-300.ttf",
          'I' => "fa-light-300.ttf",
        ],
        "far" => [
          'R' => "fa-regular-400.ttf",
          'I' => "fa-regular-400.ttf",
        ],
        "fas" => [
          'R' => "fa-solid-900.ttf",
          'I' => "fa-solid-900.ttf",
        ],
      ],
    ]);
    ...

Then I can just add the "fancy" class to get the RockSalt font. Don't forget to define the font in CSS:

.fancy { font-family: fancy; }

Does that help?

[adrian]

I have also recently used https://www.joypixels.com/ for converting emojis from UTF8 into something that works in a PDF. I use this to format messages created in a CkEditor field with the emoji plugin into a PDF summary of messages. It's not perfect, but seems to match almost all emojis from the CkEditor plugin.

Would be curious if anyone has any other suggestions on this front.

[dragan]

@bernhard Thanks for the hints. I didn't notice I was uploading .otf files instead of .ttf - my 2nd facepalm moment yesterday...

As to the other issue I mentioned: I found out it's not related to RockPDF at all. I got some really weird issues with render() / wireRenderFile() - but only when I ran my code inside Tracy console. In a regular template everything works as expected. The issue was with matrix repeaters that are called with $child->render('offer_matrix') inside the template, where I use field template files* - suddenly PW wouldn't find these anymore.

* site/templates/fields/matrix.php
site/templates/fields/matrix/body.php
site/templates/fields/matrix/gallery.php
site/templates/fields/matrix/slideshow.php
etc.

[bernhard]

Did I already mention that I don't like repeaters? ? Glad you sorted it out ?

[adrian]

9 hours ago, dragan said:

but only when I ran my code inside Tracy console. In a regular template everyting works as expected.

I think you might have come up against this bug (https://github.com/processwire/processwire-issues/issues/511). If you think it is related, perhaps you could nudge Ryan on that issue as he seems to be ignoring my concerns on this, especially when it's a really easy fix.

[bernhard]

Just updated the readme with an example of page cropping marks and bleed margins sometimes necessary for printing:

Page margins for print with cropmarks

// thx to https://stackoverflow.com/a/50245034/6370411
$pdf = $modules->get('RockPdf');
$pdf->settings([
  'mode' => 'utf-8',
  'format' => [214, 301],
  'img_dpi' => 300,
]);
$pdf->write('
<style>
  @page {
    /* regular A4 paper size is 210x297 */
    size: 211mm 298mm; /* trying some weird format to make sure it works */
    marks: crop;
  }
</style>
Content
');
d($pdf->save());

You see that the Trim Box shows our custom values 211x298 whereas the bounding box would show the paper size (214x301).

Real life example using RockPdf and RockLESS

// parts of RockPdfCalendar module

  public function init() {
    $this->w = $w = 420; // paper width in mm
    $this->h = $h = 297; // paper height in mm
    $this->b = $b = 2; // bleed in mm

    /** @var RockPdf $pdf */
    $pdf = $this->modules->get('RockPdf');
    $pdf->settings([
      'mode' => 'utf-8',
      'format' => [($w+2*$b), ($h+2*$b)],
      'dpi' => 300,
      'img_dpi' => 300,
    ]);
    $this->addBackground($pdf);
    $this->addStyles($pdf);

    $this->pdf = $pdf;
  }

  /**
   * Add Background PDF
   * @return void
   */
  public function addBackground($pdf) {
    $page = $this->pages->get("template=settings");
    $pdfs = $page->getUnformatted('calendarbackground');
    if(!$pdfs OR !$pdfs->count()) return; // no field or no file
    $pdf->set('SetDocTemplate', $pdfs->first()->filename);
  }

  /**
   * Add styles
   */
  public function addStyles($pdf) {
    /** @var RockLESS $less */
    $less = $this->modules->get('RockLESS');
    $less->vars = [
      'w' => $this->w."mm",
      'h' => $this->h."mm",
      'b' => $this->b."mm",
    ];
    $css = $less->getCSS(__DIR__ . "/style.less")->css;
    $pdf->write("<style>\n$css</style>");
  }

Then all you have to do is call $modules->get('RockPdfCalendar')->show() to render the pdf in the browser ?

[bernhard]

Just discovered a technique that can save you lots of time and headache!

Debugging can be a pain when creating PDFs, but it gets a lot simpler if you use this handy trick. I'm hooking into pageNotFoud to create the pdf:

$this->addHookBefore('ProcessPageView::pageNotFound', $this, 'renderCalendar');

If everything goes right, the calendar shows up in the browser:

But there's one problem: We don't know anything about errors, warnings, etc. Logging them into the pw logs is a pain compared to the Tracy Debugbar, so here's how you can have both - the generated HTML of the PDF and the debug bar:

We create the PDF BEFORE the 404 is thrown, but we create the HTML AFTER the 404:

$this->addHookBefore('ProcessPageView::pageNotFound', $this, 'renderCalendar');
$this->addHookAfter('ProcessPageView::pageNotFound', $this, 'renderCalendarDebug');

  /**
   * Render PDF calendar
   */
  public function renderCalendar(HookEvent $event) {
    $url = $event->arguments(1);
    $cal = $this->modules->get('RockPdfCalendar');

	// check url etc
    ...
    // generate the PDF
    $pdf = $cal->pdf; /** @var RockPdf $pdf */
    ...

    $title = 'Kaumberg Kalender ' . date("Y-m", $start);
    $pdf->set('setTitle', $title);
    $pdf->write($cal->render());

    // if html get parameter is set we return the html output
    $this->session->calHTML = null;
    if($this->user->isSuperuser() AND $this->input->get->html) {
      $this->session->calHTML = $pdf->html();
      return;
    }
    $pdf->show("$title.pdf");
    die();
  }

  /**
   * Output calendar for debugging
   * @return void
   */
  public function renderCalendarDebug(HookEvent $event) {
    if($this->session->calHTML) $event->return = $this->session->calHTML;
  }

?

[psy]

Thanks for another great module @bernhard

Wanted to share my experiences changing from Pages2PDF to RockPdf. Wasn't quite as straightforward as I'd hoped. Such is life, but I got there. Pages2Pdf uses mPDFv5+ while RockPdf uses mPDFv7+ and I needed some of the newer features.

Things Iearned along the way:

1. If you need to use @page, you lose everything in the template 

$pdf->set('header', '...');

 settings. This has nothing to do with RockPdf but a 'feature' of mPDF

2. It's much easier to add custom fonts to RockPdf than Pages2PDF

3. You can display images in a circle using background-image but they don't print so that's not helpful, LOL

This is NOT a full tutorial but hopefully will give you some pointers on how I got RockPdf working for a fairly specific PDF design.

RockPdf template settings:

<?php

    $pdf = $modules->get('RockPdf');

    $pdf->settings([
        'fontdata' => (new \Mpdf\Config\FontVariables())->getDefaults()['fontdata'] + [
             "montserrat" => [
                'R' => "montserrat-regular.ttf",
                'B' => "montserrat-bold.ttf",
            ],
            "montserratlight" =>[
                'R' => "montserrat-light.ttf"
            ],
            "montserratthin" => [
                'R' => "montserrat-thin.ttf"
            ]
        ],

        'defaultheaderline' => 0,

        'font_size' => 9,
        'mode' => 'utf-8',
        'font' => 'montserrat',
        'page_format' => 'A4',
    ]);

    $css = wireRenderFile($config->paths->templates . 'RockPdf/styles-v3.css');
    $pdf->write("<style>" . $css . "</style>");

    $body = wireRenderFile($config->paths->templates . 'RockPdf/profile_pdf_cv-v3.php');
    $pdf->write($body);

    $pdfFile = $sanitizer->pageName($profile->title) . "-" . $profile->id . ".pdf";

    $pdf->show($pdfFile);
    die();

//    Remove old Pages2PDF settings
//    $mpdf->markupMain   = $config->paths->templates . 'RockPdf/profile_pdf_cv-v3.php';
//    $mpdf->markupHeader = $config->paths->templates . 'RockPdf/_header-v3.php';
//    $mpdf->markupFooter = $config->paths->templates . 'pages2pdf/_footer-v2.php';
//    $mpdf->cssFile = $config->paths->templates . 'RockPdf/styles-v3.css';
//    $mpdf->pageOrientation = 'P';
//    $mpdf->pageFormat = 'A4';
//    $mpdf->topMargin = 9.5;
//    $mpdf->rightMargin = 0;
//    $mpdf->bottomMargin = 9;
//    $mpdf->leftMargin = 0;
//    $mpdf->headerMargin = 0;
//    $mpdf->footerMargin = 0;
//    $mpdf->fontSize = 9;
//    $mpdf->mode = 's';
//    $mpdf->font = 'montserrat';

Header code:

    <div style="
        background-color: #007ee5;
        height: 10mm;
        margin: 0;
        top: 0;
        left: 0;
        right: 0;
        width: 100%;
">
    </div>

Page layout code:

<?php

// header is the same on all pages but need more spacing on all pages except the first
$header = wireRenderFile($config->paths->templates . 'RockPdf/_header-v3.php');
?>
<htmlpageheader name="myHeaderFirst" style="display:none">
    <?=$header?>
</htmlpageheader>

<htmlpageheader name="myHeader" style="display:none">
    <?=$header?>
</htmlpageheader>

<sethtmlpageheader name="myHeaderFirst" value="on" show-this-page="1" />
<sethtmlpageheader name="myHeader" value="on" />



<div class="user-dets">

CSS:

/*
Additional fonts added to:
site/assets/RockPdf/fonts

*/
@page {
    margin: 15mm 0 0 0; /* <any of the usual CSS values for margins> */
    /*(% of page-box width for LR, of height for TB) */
    margin-header: 0; /* <any of the usual CSS values for margins> */
    margin-footer: 9mm; /* <any of the usual CSS values for margins> */
    marks: none;/*crop | cross | none*/
    header: html_myHeader;
}

@page :first {
    margin: 9.5mm 0 0 0; /* <any of the usual CSS values for margins> */
    /*(% of page-box width for LR, of height for TB) */
    margin-header: 0; /* <any of the usual CSS values for margins> */
    margin-footer: 9mm; /* <any of the usual CSS values for margins> */
    marks: none;/*crop | cross | none*/
    header: html_myHeaderFirst;

}

Hope this is useful.

Cheers
psy

 

[bernhard]

Thx for sharing your experience @psy ? 

43 minutes ago, psy said:

Wasn't quite as straightforward as I'd hoped. Such is life, but I got there.

mPdf is unfortunately not really a pleasure to work with ? It feels a bit like designing websites 20 years ago with lots of custom table layouts, custom styles, paddings, margins etc... But as you said: I also got there almost everytime and I didn't find a better solution yet.

Writing your styles as LESS can be helpful because you can create simple custom classes for any element and to the complex styling in CSS. Using LESS ensures that your style stays easy to maintain because you can use class inheritance and variables. RockPdf plays really well together with RockLESS. I added an example to the readme:

Combine RockPdf and RockLESS

$pdf = $modules->get('RockPdf');
$less = $modules->get('RockLESS');
$style = "
@padding-s: 10pt;
.border { border: 1pt solid #afafaf; }
.hello { .border; color: blue; padding-top: @padding-s; }
.world { .border; color: red; padding-top: @padding-s * 2; }
";
$css = "\n".$less->parse($style);
$pdf->write("<style>$css</style>");
$pdf->write("<div class='hello'>hello</div>");
$pdf->write("<div class='world'>world</div>");
d($pdf->save());

This is the result of $pdf->html()

<style>
.border {
  border: 1pt solid #afafaf;
}
.hello {
  border: 1pt solid #afafaf;
  color: blue;
  padding-top: 10pt;
}
.world {
  border: 1pt solid #afafaf;
  color: red;
  padding-top: 20pt;
}
</style>
<div class='hello'>hello</div>
<div class='world'>world</div>

 

[psy]

8 hours ago, bernhard said:

mPdf is unfortunately not really a pleasure to work with ? It feels a bit like designing websites 20 years ago with lots of custom table layouts, custom styles, paddings, margins etc...

@bernhard Oh so true! Pdf's can look different between browser views and Acrobat Reader too. 

[psy]

On 4/22/2020 at 10:18 PM, bernhard said:

Writing your styles as LESS can be helpful because you can create simple custom classes for any element and to the complex styling in CSS.

Hi @bernhard

Yes, RockLESS, SCSS and other CSS preprocessors can be useful. One thing I learned the hard way however is that the header is loaded before any HTML or CSS. The only way I could style the header to look as intended was with inline styles. I certainly used classes with the limited CSS styling available from mPDF in the body. Maybe there's a better way, just didn't have the time or patience to explore.

Another limitation was with tables... I needed a centered heading and left aligned text within a table cell. Nope, if the <td> is left aligned, so is everything within the cell. Had to revert to divs which had an impact on the design. Told the graphic designer to live with it - it is what it is! LOL

Having said that, love your module and mPDF, even with its constraints, is still the best HTML to PDF converter.

 

[bernhard]

Aligning things is tricky, but most things work using nested tables (that's what I meant when saying "like 20 years ago"). What about this?

$pdf = $modules->get('RockPdf');
$table = '
<style>
td { border: 1pt solid black; }
.center {text-align: center;}
</style>
<table>';
$table .= '<tr><td class="center">foo</td><td>bar</td></tr>';
$table .= '<tr><td>Donec vitae sapien ut libero</td><td>Donec vitae sapien ut libero</td></tr>';

$td = "<table><tr><td class='center'>sub-heading</td></tr><tr><td>Phasellus ullamcorper ipsum rutrum nunc</td></tr></table>";
$table .= "<tr><td>Donec vitae sapien ut libero</td><td>$td</td></tr>";

$table .= '</table>';
$pdf->write($table);
d($pdf->save()); // generate pdf

[psy]

Yep, that's a solution - 20yrs ago HTML/CSS ? 

In my particular case there are other factors. The user can choose to include/exclude bits which makes it an ugly, logistical nightmare.

34 minutes ago, psy said:

Told the graphic designer to live with it - it is what it is! LOL

 

[pwfans]

On 10/17/2018 at 7:36 PM, charger said:

Did anyone else encounter problems with `show()` and `download()`? If I use them, all I get is blank pages resulting in an invalid PDF. The `save()` function works as expected though.

I’m running PW 3.0.98 with PHP 7.1.12 and RockPdf 1.0.1

For anybody facing this problem which in my case invalid pdf will generate error  "one or more XREF chunks were not found".
Solved it by placing the rockpdf instance php code block on top of anything else.

[bernhard]

2 hours ago, pwfans said:

Solved it by placing the rockpdf instance php code block on top of anything else.

Thx for the report. Can you please give us some more details, I don't really understand what you mean ? 

[pwfans]

@bernhard sorry, i make you confuse by my bad english ?

I mean, try to place this :

<?php
$pdf = $modules->get('RockPdf');
$pdf->write("pdf content");  
$pdf->show();
?>

before any html content, at first line if possible.

[axelino]

Hi @bernhard,

thank you for the module, which is helpful in keeping the project structure clean.

I also use the MPDF barcode component to generate QR codes of the page URL.
For this it was necessary to add the MPDF QR Code library to the RockPDF module using following command inside the /site/modules/RockPdf directory:

$ composer require mpdf/qrcode

It would be great if this was already available in the basic version of the module so as not to jeopardize the upgradeability.
What do you think, is it interesting to add or rather an unusual special case?

[bernhard]

Thx @axelino and welcome to the forum ? 

I tried to test the library quickly but could not make it work. Could you please provide a PR and usage instructions for the readme so that I can check it quickly? Then I'm happy to add it to the module ? 

[axelino]

Hi @bernhard, thanks for the welcome and your fast reply! ?
I'm happy you want to add it and try to prepare a PR with usage instructions tomorrow or monday.

[webhoes]

I have the pdf render in a function to keep my template clean.

On top of the function I do

// maps

    $images = $page->flightplan_images;

    $image = "";

    foreach ($images as $i){

        $image .= '<img src="' . $i->url . '" uk-image>';

    }

 

Tried both $pdf->write() with some html with $image and

$mpdf->WriteHTML() with some html with $image.

 

All is there except for the images.

How do I output images in a pdf.

[bernhard]

Make sure the file does exist on your system and also try using the file path instead of the url: https://processwire.com/api/ref/pageimage/filename/

[webhoes]

Thanks @bernhard that works.

The image was also 2000+ pixels wide. That was also a reason it did not show. Not sure why.

[webhoes]

I use a textarea on the frontend that is saved in form. In that textarea on the frontpage paragraphs remain visible after save.

In the pdf all text is rendered after each other.

What is the best way to preserve paragraphs both on the page and the pdf?

[bernhard]

It's all about providing the correct HTML for mpdf. Just debug what is being sent to mpdf (eg using tracy bd() calls) and you should be able to resolve your problem.

[Ralf]

Hello all,

once again I have a problem how to integrate the PDF output into my page ...
(With a direct output I get it in the meantime, see here).

But now I use the standard template "Regular" (which is already included in the installation) and it uses the "Markup regions" method as output strategy.

Well, and this is where I get stuck. Because if I try it with the same method as in the link above, it wants to open a PDF in the browser, but there is ALWAYS an error message.

However, it can't be the code, a) I've already tried it only with the most necessary and b) any test code works wonderfully in "Tracy", whether I want to output it directly or save it, everything works.

Now I'm unfortunately a bit at the end of my ideas and hope to get some helpful tips from the community.

Would be happy, thank you and stay healthy
cu Ralf