Generating PDFs using Wicked PDF in Ruby on Rails
14 February 2011 09:26 | Posted by Dermot
We have recently done a few projects that required providing a PDF version of a page of reporting data.
Fortunately we were able to use the WickedPdf plugin (https://github.com/mileszs/wicked_pdf) to create the PDFs quickly and easily.
Here are some lessons that we learned while working with it.
1. Installing wkhtmltopdf
WickedPDF depends on wkhtmltopdf. There are a few different ways of installing it on Linux. One or more of these should work for you.
-
# wkhtmltopdf-binary gem $ sudo gem install wkhtmltopdf-binary # rvmsudo if using rvm or gem 'wkhtmltopdf-binary' # in Gemfile Test the install of wkhtmltopdf $ wkhtmltopdf --help -
sudo apt-get install wkhtmltopdf # ubuntu/debian -
Download the static version
# http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/downloads/list # from http://www.linkme.com.au/ui/unregistered/blogs/BlogPost.aspx?postId=72fc2553cfe3454bb11c00c16c583638 sudo aptitude install openssl build-essential xorg libssl-dev #for 64bits OS $ wget http://wkhtmltopdf.googlecode.com/files/wkhtmltopdf-0.9.9-static-amd64.tar.bz2 $ tar xvjf wkhtmltopdf-0.9.9-static-amd64.tar.bz2 $ chown root:root wkhtmltopdf-amd64 $ mv wkhtmltopdf-amd64 /usr/bin/wkhtmltopdf #for 32bits OS $ wget http://wkhtmltopdf.googlecode.com/files/wkhtmltopdf-0.9.9-static-i386.tar.bz2 $ tar xvjf wkhtmltopdf-0.9.9-static-i386.tar.bz2 $ chown root:root wkhtmltopdf-i386 $ mv wkhtmltopdf-i386 /usr/bin/wkhtmltopdf
2. Install WickedPDF
rails plugin install git://github.com/mileszs/wicked_pdf.git
Find out where wkhtmltopdf was installed
$ which `wkhtmltopdf`
Set the path to wkhtmltopdf
# config/initializers/wicked_pdf.rb
WickedPdf.config = {
:exe_path => '/path/to/wkhtmltopdf'
}
3. Render PDF
# controllers/welcome_controller.rb
def index
respond_to do |format|
format.html
format.pdf do
render :pdf => "my_pdf", # pdf will download as my_pdf.pdf
:layout => 'pdf', # uses views/layouts/pdf.haml
:show_as_html => params[:debug].present? # renders html version if you set debug=true in URL
end
end
end
end
Take a look at a sample app for this on github
Bugs/Limitations
I wasn't able to get Javascript working with PDF. So if the page depends on Javascript, it won't render. I also had a problem getting the stylesheet helpers working. I had to inline all the css and then it worked.
If you found this blog piece to be helpful, feel free to add this snippet to your own site so that others may benefit from it:
<a href="http://www.lucidity.ie/blog/33-generating-pdfs-using-wicked-pdf-in-ruby-on-rails">Web Development company</a>
1. I can not load the stylesheet using helper ' wicked_pdf_stylesheet_link_tag', I solved that issue when I see their helper, I think the problem is when I try to use background image url in css the location path is not found correctly by rails root (I made new helper to solve this problem). but except the background url problem all the style is fine.
2. in local server it is fine to generate pdf file but when I used with passenger in my local/server they can not generate the pdf. I solved this problem install manually to /etc/local/bin/wkhtmlpdf.
The link to the sample app on github is outdated since the name of the company was changed from luciditytech to luciditydigital.
Correct link here: https://github.com/luciditydigital/wicked-pdf-sample-app
You have to use absolute URL's for the Javascript as the "wicked_pdf_javascript_include_tag" helper tag doesn't work.
Although the "wicked_pdf_stylesheet_link_tag" helper tag works just fine and allows you to include your CSS files!
N.B. If you want to use custom fonts then I haven't been able to get that to work, so if someone does then please let me know :o)
Thanks.