Create a PDF file from HTML content

BlueForest85

Hello everyone,

I'm wondering how I could generate a PDF file from HTML content.

I don't know if it's natively possible, but I took a peek on the plug-in page :

This one seems interesting, with its demo : https://apex.world/ords/f?p=100:710:7521831718395::::P710_PLG_ID:AT.RAMMELHOF.CLIENT-SIDE-PDF

However I want to know your point of view about this and how to proceed.

Thank you for your experience !

BlueForest85

Anyone ?

Billy Verreynne

I use Chrome in headless mode as a Perl-based CGI web service.

You call it with a URL as parameter and Perl runs Chrome's print-to-pdf feature on that URL passed.

Basic Perl CGI script below. I wrote back in 2019. There were Chrome bugs with ignoring certs. And I do not know Perl.

For APEX URLs you need to work around authentication and APEX item values for the page. I passed a "proxy URL" to the Perl CGI with a unique token parameter for the public APEX proxy page URL. This token was used to perform a transparent logon and redirect to the APEX page (with values), for Chrome to render (in headless mode) and save to PDF.

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# bug filed for https acceptInsecureCerts
# 	https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=721739
#

use CGI;
$myCgi = new CGI;

$base		= $myCgi->param('base');
$pdfFile	= $myCgi->param('filename');
$download	= $myCgi->param('auto-download');

if (($base eq "") || ($base eq "null")) {
	print "Expires: 0\n";
	print "Pragma: no-cache\n";
	print "Content-Type: text/plain;\n\n";
	print "Parameter 'base' is required, but not detected.\nYour URL call cannot be serviced.\n";
	print "\n\n";
	print "usage:	base=<url>[&filename=<file.pdf>][&auto-download=yes]\n";
	exit
}

$URL=$base;
$direct	= "/tmp/";
$myFile	= "$direct".time()."_$$-1.pdf";

# `google-chrome runs as --headless --disable-gpu --use-gl --virtual-time-budget=10000 --ignore-certificate-errors --print-to-pdf="$myFile" "$URL" 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null`;
# Have to run as chrome user in order for /home/chrome/.config to be used, containing wallet and certificates - thus sudo as chrome is used
`sudo -u chrome /home/chrome/bin/google-chrome "$myFile" "$URL" `;

print "X-cgi-name: PageToPDF.cgi - $$\n";
print "X-pdf-url: $URL\n";
print "Expires: 0\n";
print "Pragma: no-cache\n";

if ($pdfFile ne "") {
	if ($download ne "") {
		print "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$pdfFile\"\n";
	}
	else {
		print "Content-Disposition: filename=\"$pdfFile\"\n";
	}
}
print "Content-Type: application/pdf;\n\n";
open (FH, $myFile);
while (my $line = <FH>) {
	print ("$line");
}
close(FH);

unlink( $myFile );

#eof

InoL

I've used jsPDF for this. It lets you create a pdf of the whole page, or just a specific region if needed. After attaching the JavaScript libraries jsPDF and html2canvas, you can use this as a starting point (e.g. using a Print button):

window.jsPDF = window.jspdf.jsPDF;
var doc = new jsPDF();   
doc.html(document.getElementById('container'), {
   callback: function (doc) {
     doc.save();
   },
    width: 170,
    windowWidth:700,
    margin: [20, 0, 0, 20]
});

where 'container' is the static ID of the region you want to save as a pdf.

Saving the whole page as a pdf is easy, because you can use the native browser print option.