Wicked PDF uses the shell utility wkhtmltopdf to serve a PDF file to a user from HTML. In other words, rather than dealing with a PDF generation DSL of some sort, you simply write an HTML view as you would normally, then let Wicked PDF take care of the hard stuff.
Wicked PDF has been verified to work on Ruby versions 1.8.7 through 2.1; Rails 2 through 4.1
Add this to your Gemfile and run bundle install:
gem'wicked_pdf'Then create the initializer with
rails generate wicked_pdf You may also need to add
Mime::Type.register"application/pdf",:pdfto config/initializers/mime_types.rb in older versions of Rails.
Because wicked_pdf is a wrapper for wkhtmltopdf, you'll need to install that, too.
The simplest way to install all of the binaries (Linux, OSX, Windows) is through the gem wkhtmltopdf-binary. To install that, add a second gem
gem'wkhtmltopdf-binary'To your Gemfile and run bundle install.
If your wkhtmltopdf executable is not on your webserver's path, you can configure it in an initializer:
WickedPdf.config={exe_path: '/usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf'}For more information about wkhtmltopdf, see the project's homepage.
classThingsController < ApplicationControllerdefshowrespond_todo |format| format.htmlformat.pdfdorenderpdf: "file_name"# Excluding ".pdf" extension.endendendendThe wkhtmltopdf binary is run outside of your Rails application; therefore, your normal layouts will not work. If you plan to use any CSS, Javascript, or image files, you must modify your layout so that you provide an absolute reference to these files. The best option for Rails without the asset pipeline is to use the wicked_pdf_stylesheet_link_tag, wicked_pdf_image_tag, and wicked_pdf_javascript_include_tag helpers or to go straight to a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for popular libraries such as jQuery.
<!doctype html><html><head><metacharset='utf-8' /><%= wicked_pdf_stylesheet_link_tag "pdf" -%><%= wicked_pdf_javascript_include_tag "number_pages" %></head><bodyonload='number_pages'><divid="header"><%= wicked_pdf_image_tag 'mysite.jpg' %></div><divid="content"><%= yield %></div></body></html>In this case, you can use that standard Rails helpers and point to the current CDN for whichever framework you are using. For jQuery, it would look somethng like this, given the current versions at the time of this writing.
<!doctype html><html><head><%= javascript_include_tag "http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.0.min.js" %><%= javascript_include_tag "http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.3/jquery-ui.min.js" %>The way to handle this for the asset pipeline on Heroku is to include these files in your asset precompile list, as follows:
config.assets.precompile += ['blueprint/screen.css', 'pdf.css', 'jquery.ui.datepicker.js', 'pdf.js', ...etc...] classThingsController < ApplicationControllerdefshowrespond_todo |format| format.htmlformat.pdfdorenderpdf: 'file_name',disposition: 'attachment',# default 'inline'template: 'things/show.pdf.erb',file: "#{Rails.root}/files/foo.erb"layout: 'pdf.html',# use 'pdf.html' for a pdf.html.erb filewkhtmltopdf: '/usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf',# path to binaryshow_as_html: params[:debug].present?,# allow debugging based on url paramorientation: 'Landscape',# default Portraitpage_size: 'A4, Letter, ...',# default A4page_height: NUMBER,page_width: NUMBER,save_to_file: Rails.root.join('pdfs',"#{filename}.pdf"),save_only: false,# depends on :save_to_file being set firstproxy: 'TEXT',basic_auth: false# when true username & password are automatically sent from sessionusername: 'TEXT',password: 'TEXT',title: 'Alternate Title',# otherwise first page title is usedcover: 'URL, Pathname, or raw HTML string',dpi: 'dpi',encoding: 'TEXT',user_style_sheet: 'URL',cookie: ['_session_id SESSION_ID'],# could be an array or a single string in a 'name value' formatpost: ['query QUERY_PARAM'],# could be an array or a single string in a 'name value' formatredirect_delay: NUMBER,javascript_delay: NUMBER,image_quality: NUMBER,no_pdf_compression: true,zoom: FLOAT,page_offset: NUMBER,book: true,default_header: true,disable_javascript: false,grayscale: true,lowquality: true,enable_plugins: true,disable_internal_links: true,disable_external_links: true,print_media_type: true,disable_smart_shrinking: true,use_xserver: true,no_background: true,viewport_size: 'TEXT',# available only with use_xserver or patched QTextra: '',# directly inserted into the command to wkhtmltopdfoutline: {outline: true,outline_depth: LEVEL},margin: {top: SIZE,# default 10 (mm)bottom: SIZE,left: SIZE,right: SIZE},header: {html: {template: 'users/header.pdf.erb',# use :template OR :urllayout: 'pdf_plain.html',# optional, use 'pdf_plain.html' for a pdf_plain.html.erb file, defaults to main layouturl: 'www.example.com',locals: {foo: @bar}},center: 'TEXT',font_name: 'NAME',font_size: SIZE,left: 'TEXT',right: 'TEXT',spacing: REAL,line: true,content: 'HTML CONTENT ALREADY RENDERED'},# optionally you can pass plain html already rendered (useful if using pdf_from_string)footer: {html: {template:'shared/footer.pdf.erb',# use :template OR :urllayout: 'pdf_plain.html',# optional, use 'pdf_plain.html' for a pdf_plain.html.erb file, defaults to main layouturl: 'www.example.com',locals: {foo: @bar}},center: 'TEXT',font_name: 'NAME',font_size: SIZE,left: 'TEXT',right: 'TEXT',spacing: REAL,line: true,content: 'HTML CONTENT ALREADY RENDERED'},# optionally you can pass plain html already rendered (useful if using pdf_from_string)toc: {font_name: "NAME",depth: LEVEL,header_text: "TEXT",header_fs: SIZE,text_size_shrink: 0.8,l1_font_size: SIZE,l2_font_size: SIZE,l3_font_size: SIZE,l4_font_size: SIZE,l5_font_size: SIZE,l6_font_size: SIZE,l7_font_size: SIZE,level_indentation: NUM,l1_indentation: NUM,l2_indentation: NUM,l3_indentation: NUM,l4_indentation: NUM,l5_indentation: NUM,l6_indentation: NUM,l7_indentation: NUM,no_dots: true,disable_dotted_lines: true,disable_links: true,disable_toc_links: true,disable_back_links:true,xsl_style_sheet: 'file.xsl'}# optional XSLT stylesheet to use for styling table of contentsendendendendBy default, it will render without a layout (layout: false) and the template for the current controller and action.
If you need to just create a pdf and not display it:
# create a pdf from a stringpdf=WickedPdf.new.pdf_from_string('<h1>Hello There!</h1>')# create a pdf file from a html file without converting it to string# Path must be absolute pathpdf=WickedPdf.new.pdf_from_html_file('/your/absolute/path/here')# create a pdf from a URLpdf=WickedPdf.new.pdf_from_url('https://github.com/mileszs/wicked_pdf')# create a pdf from string using templates, layouts and content option for header or footerWickedPdf.new.pdf_from_string(render_to_string('templates/pdf.html.erb',layout: 'pdfs/layout_pdf'),footer: {content: render_to_string(layout: 'pdfs/layout_pdf')})# or from your controller, using views & templates and all wicked_pdf options as normalpdf=render_to_stringpdf: "some_file_name",template: "templates/pdf.html.erb",encoding: "UTF-8"# then save to a filesave_path=Rails.root.join('pdfs','filename.pdf')File.open(save_path,'wb')do |file| file << pdfendIf you need to display utf encoded characters, add this to your pdf views or layouts:
<metacharset="utf-8" />A bit of javascript can help you number your pages. Create a template or header/footer file with this:
<html><head><script>functionnumber_pages(){varvars={};varx=document.location.search.substring(1).split('&');for(variinx){varz=x[i].split('=',2);vars[z[0]]=unescape(z[1]);}varx=['frompage','topage','page','webpage','section','subsection','subsubsection'];for(variinx){vary=document.getElementsByClassName(x[i]);for(varj=0;j<y.length;++j)y[j].textContent=vars[x[i]];}}</script></head><bodyonload="number_pages()"> Page <spanclass="page"></span> of <spanclass="topage"></span></body></html>Anything with a class listed in "var x" above will be auto-filled at render time.
If you do not have explicit page breaks (and therefore do not have any "page" class), you can also use wkhtmltopdf's built in page number generation by setting one of the headers to "[page]":
renderpdf: 'filename',header: {right: '[page] of [topage]'}You can put your default configuration, applied to all pdf's at "wicked_pdf.rb" initializer.
If you would like to have WickedPdf automatically generate PDF views for all (or nearly all) pages by appending .pdf to the URL, add the following to your Rails app:
# in application.rb (Rails3) or environment.rb (Rails2)require'wicked_pdf'config.middleware.useWickedPdf::MiddlewareIf you want to turn on or off the middleware for certain urls, use the :only or :except conditions like so:
# conditions can be plain strings or regular expressions, and you can supply only one or an arrayconfig.middleware.useWickedPdf::Middleware,{},only: '/invoice'config.middleware.useWickedPdf::Middleware,{},except: [%r[^/admin],'/secret',%r[^/people/\d]]If you use the standard render pdf: 'some_pdf' in your app, you will want to exclude those actions from the middleware.
Andreas Happe's post Generating PDFs from Ruby on Rails
JESii's post WickedPDF, wkhtmltopdf, and Heroku...a tricky combination
StackOverflow questions with the tag "wicked-pdf"
Now you can use a debug param on the URL that shows you the content of the pdf in plain html to design it faster.
First of all you must configure the render parameter "show_as_html: params[:debug]" and then just use it like normally but adding "debug=1" as a param:
http://localhost:3001/CONTROLLER/X.pdf?debug=1
However, the wicked_pdf_* helpers will use file:/// paths for assets when using :show_as_html, and your browser's cross-domain safety feature will kick in, and not render them. To get around this, you can load your assets like so in your templates:
<%= params[:debug].present? ? image_tag('foo') : wicked_pdf_image_tag('foo') %>If one image from your HTML cannot be found (relative or wrong path for ie), others images with right paths may not be displayed in the output PDF as well (it seems to be an issue with wkhtmltopdf).
You may have noticed: this plugin is heavily inspired by the PrinceXML plugin princely. PrinceXML's cost was prohibitive for me. So, with a little help from some friends (thanks jqr), I tracked down wkhtmltopdf, and here we are.
- Fork it
- Create your feature branch (
git checkout -b my-new-feature) - Commit your changes (
git commit -am 'Add some feature') - Push to the branch (
git push origin my-new-feature) - Create new Pull Request
Also, thanks to unixmonkey, galdomedia, jcrisp, lleirborras, tiennou, and everyone else for all their hard work and patience with my delays in merging in their enhancements.