Craft CMS PDF Generator (Versions 3.x and 4.x, 5.0.0.alpha)

Developed by CoolTRONIC.pl sp. z o.o. and Pawel Potacki. This plugin allows you to generate PDF files from Twig templates using the mPDF library. You can customize the PDF output with various options and save it as a file, an asset, or a string. You can also use URLs or HTML code blocks as templates.

Installation

You can install the PDF Generator plugin from the Craft Plugin Store or through Composer.

Go to the Craft CMS Plugin Store in your project’s Control Panel and search for "PDF Generator". Then click on the "Install" button in its modal window.

Open your terminal and go to your Craft project:

# go to project directory
cd /path/to/project
# Then tell Composer to require the plugin
composer require cooltronicpl/document-helpers
# tell Craft to install and enable the plugin
./craft plugin/install document-helpers
./craft plugin/enable document-helpers

Usage

`pdf` method Parameters

The pdf method generates a PDF file from a Twig template and returns a URL to the file. The method accepts an array of parameters:

template - This is the location of the template file for the PDF, which should be located in the /templates directory. Also, you can pass URL or HTML code block from 1.3.2 or 0.4.2.
destination - This indicates where the PDF file will be generated. It can be one of four options: file, inline, download, or string. To download multiple files, refer to the JavaScript example provided in the README.md file.
filename - This is the name of the generated PDF file. If this is provided as null, a random filename will be generated.
entry - This represents the data that will be inputted into the template to generate the PDF. This data is contained within an Entry type. If this is provided as null, an empty Entry will be created to pass functions.
pdfOptions - This parameter allows you to customize the generation of the PDF. The available options are described in the section on overriding default options.

Method returns string with the filename for anchors or string content for PDF files to send content as an attachment.

{{craft.documentHelper.pdf("template.twig", "file", "document.pdf", entry, pdfOptions)}}

Example of the pdf method:

<a href="{{alias('@web')}}/
{{craft.documentHelper.pdf("_pdf/document.twig", "file",  'pdf/' ~ entry.id ~ '.pdf', entry, pdfOptions)}}"
download>
</a>

Parameters `pdfAsset` method

The pdfAsset method generates a PDF file from a Twig template, saves it as an asset, and returns an Asset model. The method accepts an array of parameters:

template - This is the location of the template file for the PDF, which should be located in the /templates directory. Also you can pass here now a URL or a HTML code block from 1.3.2 or 0.4.2.
filename - This is the name of the temporary or/and final generated PDF file. If this is provided as null, a random filename will be generated.
entry - This represents the data that will be inputted into the template to generate the PDF. This data is contained within an Entry type. If this is provided as null, an empty Entry will be created to pass functions.
pdfOptions - This parameter allows you to customize the generation of the PDF. The available options are described in the section on overriding default options.
volumeHandle - This parameter is required and specifies the Volume Handle of the PDF to be added as a Craft CMS asset from the system. The Volume Handle needs a Base URL such as @web\pdffiles in the Craft CMS Filesystems, Assets settings for testing.

Example of the pdfAsset method:

{% set asset = craft.documentHelper.pdfAsset('_pdf/document.twig', alias('@root')~'/example.pdf', entry, pdfOptions, 'pdffiles') %}
{% if asset %}
    <a href="{{asset.url()}}?v={{asset.dateModified|date('U')}}">Download your PDF</a>
{% else %}
    The file was not generated.
{% endif %}

Securely Displaying PDF Documents in the Browser Without Saving to the /web Folder

You can securely display PDF documents in the browser without saving them to the /web folder as follows:

                        {% set pdfOptions = {
                        date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U'),
                        header: "_pdf/header.twig",
                        footer: "_pdf/footer.twig"
                        } %}
                {% header "Content-Type: application/pdf" %}
{{craft.documentHelper.pdf('_pdf/document.twig', 'inline', '../book_example'  ~ '.pdf', entry, pdfOptions)}}

Variables in the template

Within the PDF Twig template, you can access the passed entry in a generated Twig template array:

{{entry.VAR}}

The title of the current entry can be accessed via:

{{title}}

How to use custom templates by code block and URL

You can use a URL or an HTML code block as a template for the PDF file. To do this, pass the URL or the HTML code block as the template parameter.

When you encounter problems with URLs you can set encoding, proposed to set UTF-8. Example of using a URL as a template:

{% set pdfOptions = {
        
    }
%} 
<a href="{{alias('@web')}}{{craft.documentHelper.pdf('https://cooltronic.pl/', 'file', 'pdf/exampleURL.pdf'  , entry, pdfOptions)}}">URL Example</a>

After installing the custom URL Purifier (HTMLPurifier) package in plugin settings you can solve problems with scraping external websites and enable the URLPurify option. When you encounter problems try to install this package in the @root path:

# Craft CMS 4, 5.0.0.alpha
composer require ezyang/htmlpurifier:^4.17 
# Craft CMS 3
composer require ezyang/htmlpurifier:^4.13

Example of a code block:

{% set pdfOptions = {

    }
%}    
{% set html %}
    <h1>This is a basic example</h1>
    <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod.</p>
    <br>
    <p>HTML Contents</p>
{% endset %}

<a href="{{alias('@web')}}{{craft.documentHelper.pdf(html, 'file', 'pdf/exampleHTML.pdf'  , entry, pdfOptions)}}">HTML PDF</a>

How to use custom variables with code block

You can pass custom variables to the PDF template using the custom or qrimg options in the pdfOptions array. The custom option allows you to pass any variable, while the qrimg option allows you to pass a QR code image from the qrdata variable.

Example of using custom variables:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    qrdata: "https://cooltronic.pl"
    custom: entry.var
    }
%}
{% set pdf_content %}
    <h1>This is a basic example</h1>
    <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod.</p>
    <br>
    {% verbatim %}
    <p>QR Code:</p>
    <img src="{{qrimg}}" alt="QR Code"/>
    {{custom}}
    {% endverbatim %}
{% endset %}
<a href="{{alias('@web')}}{{craft.documentHelper.pdf(pdf_content, 'file', 'pdf/html.pdf', entry , pdfOptions)}}">HTML QR Code & Custom PDF</a>

Overriding Default Options

You can override the default options with pdfOptions as shown above. Here are the available options:

date (default: null) - If you provide a date (in timestamp format) that is older than the creation date of the file, the existing file will be overwritten. Otherwise, the file will not be modified.
header (default: null) - The optional location of the template file for the header, which should be in the /templates directory. You can also use a URL or an HTML code block as a template. For example, header: "_pdf/header.html", footer: "https://example.com/someheader" or header: "<h1>My Header</h1>".
footer (default: null) - The optional location of the template file for the footer, which should be in the /templates directory. You can also use a URL or an HTML code block as a template. For example, footer: "_pdf/footer.twig", footer: "https://example.com/somefooter" or footer: "<p>My Footer</p>".
margin_top (default: 30) - The top margin is in millimetres.
margin_bottom (default: 30) - The bottom margin is in millimetres.
margin_left (default: 15) - The left margin is in millimetres.
margin_right (default: 15) - The right margin is in millimetres.
mirrorMargins (default: 0) - Whether to use different margins for odd and even pages. Set to 1 to enable this feature.
pageNumbers (default: false) - Whether to add page numbers in the footer. Set to true to enable this feature.
title (default: null) - This replaces the default title of the generated PDF document.
custom (default: null) - This allows you to add a custom variable or variables.
password (default: null) - This can be used to add password protection to your PDF. The password should be provided as a string.
no_auto_page_break (default: null) - This disables automatic system page breaks. This can be useful if you need to manually add page breaks. For example, you can add a custom page to documents with more than one-page break using <pagebreak>. This may fix page break issues in some cases.
disableCopyright (default: null) - This option requires the Plus plan and can be used to disable invisible copyright tags (to remove invisible watermarks).
author (default: null) - This sets the author metadata. It should be provided as a string.
keywords (default: null) - This sets the keyword metadata. It should be provided as a string in the following format: "keyword1, longer keyword2, keyword3".
fonts (default: null):
- fontdata (default: null), and fontDir (default: null) - These allow you to set custom fonts described above.
tempDir (default: @runtime/temp/pdfgenerator) - This sets the path to the temporary directory used for generating PDFs. We have tested this with the main /tmp directory on the server with success. This could potentially improve performance when generating multiple PDFs.
landscape (default: null) - If this is set, the PDF will be generated in landscape mode.
portrait (default: null) - If this is set, the PDF will be generated in portrait mode.
format (default: A4) - This option sets the paper size for the PDF. The default is "A4", but you can set other sizes compatible with MPDF. Other popular formats include:
- A3
- A4 (default)
- A5
- Letter (8,5 x 11 in)
- Legal (8,5 x 14 in)
- Executive (7,25 x 10,5 in)
- B4
- B5
generateMode (default: null) - This option requires the Plus plan and can be set as a string:
- pdfa for PDF-A
- pdfx for PDF-X
- pdfaauto for PDF-A with common corrections
- pdfxauto for PDF-X with common corrections
colorspace (default: null) - This option can be set as an integer:
- 1 - allow GRAYSCALE only [convert CMYK/RGB->gray]
- 2 - allow RGB / SPOT COLOR / Grayscale [convert CMYK->RGB]
- 3 - allow CMYK / SPOT COLOR / Grayscale [convert RGB->CMYK]
- 0 - or any other value: no restriction is made on colourspace used
startPage (default: null) - The first page of the PDF to be generated. You can use this option to trim unnecessary pages from the beginning of the PDF. For example, startPage: 2 will skip the first page of the PDF.
endPage (default: null) - The last page of the PDF to be generated. You can use this option to trim unnecessary pages from the end of the PDF. For example, endPage: 10 will generate a PDF with only 10 pages.
watermarkImage (default: null) - This option creates a watermark using the image file specified by the provided path.
watermarkText (default: null) - This option creates a watermark using the text provided.
autoToC (default: null) - This option automatically generates a Table of Contents using the H1-H6 tags in your document.
autoBookmarks (default: null) - This option automatically generates bookmarks using the H1-H6 tags in your document.
assetTitle (default: null) - This option allows you to set a custom title for the Asset in the Craft CMS system when using the pdfAsset method.
assetFilename (default: null) - This option allows you to change the target filename of the file in the Craft CMS Asset when using the pdfAsset method.
assetDelete (default: null) - This option enables the deletion of the internally generated file in the @root path. Please note that this operation is irreversible and may consume more resources. This is because the Asset is updated and the PDF is generated on every load when using the pdfAsset method.
assetSiteId (default: null)- This option allows you to assign a custom siteId to the Asset of the pdfAsset method. The siteId should be passed as a number, representing the ID of the site to which the generated asset should belong.
assetThumb (default: null) - This option generates a thumbnail image of a Craft CMS image Asset using the pdfAsset method (requires ImageMagick). It can be accessed in the Twig template as asset.assetThumb.
- assetThumbVolumeHandle (default: null): This parameter is optional and defines the Volume Handle of the thumbnail. It falls back to the PDF Volume Handle if not set. The Volume Handle needs a Base URL like @web\pdffiles in the Craft CMS Filesystems, Assets settings for testing.
dumbThumb (default: null) - This option generates a basic thumbnail image (without an Asset) using the pdf method (requires ImageMagick).
- dumbThumbFilename (default: null) - The custom filename of the generated image, the thumbType extension will be added to the filename.
- dumbThumbDir (default: null) - The custom save directory of the generated image, which must exist.

Both assetThumb and dumbThumb support the following optional customizations:

thumbType - This parameter allows you to choose the format of the thumbnail. Options include jpg, gif, webp, avif, and png. The default format is jpg.
thumbWidth - This parameter specifies the width of the thumbnail in pixels. The default width is 210.
thumbHeight - This parameter specifies the height of the thumbnail in pixels. The default height is 297.
thumbPage - This parameter specifies the page to generate the thumbnail from. The default is the first page, which is numbered from 0.
thumbQuality - The quality of the generated thumbnail image from (lowest) 0 to 100 (highest).
thumbBgColor - This parameter specifies the background colour of the thumbnail. Options include black, rgb(33,66,99), and #123456. The default colour is white.
thumbTrim - This parameter, when set to true, trims your page and centres the content. The default value is false.
thumbTrimFrameColor - This parameter changes the colour of the trim frame. Colours can be specified as black or in RGB format (e.g., rgb(12,1,2)) or HEX format (e.g., #662266).
thumbBestfit - This boolean value determines whether to fit the image within the given dimensions or not. If true, the image will be scaled down so that it fits within the given dimensions. If false, the image will be stretched or cropped to fill the given dimensions.

Advanced options:

encoding (default: null) - This can set encoding of the following codepages are supported by the iconv() function like UTF-8. More info.
disableCompression (default: false) - This option can be set to true to disable automatic compression of the generated PDF file. This may increase the file size but also improve the quality.
qrdata (default: null) - This option allows you to generate a QR Code image from any data you provide. The image will be available on the Twig template with the {{qrimg}} variable. Required to install optional package from plugin settings.
URLPurify (default: null) - Whether to enable an external library to sanitize the HTML provided by the URL in the template parameter. Set to true to enable this feature.
URLTwigRender (default: null) - Whether to render Twig variables on parsed custom URLs. This allows the use of attributes like {{custom}} or QR Code as {{qrimg}} from parsed custom URLs. Set to true to enable this feature.
URLMode (default: null) - This option can be set to curl, to get URLs via CURL instead of file_get_contents().
convertImgToCMYK (default: null) - Set this option to true to convert all images to CMYK in a document for PDF-X mode with the optional package simplehtmldom/simplehtmldom. This option requires the Plus plan and ImageMagick.
log (default: null) - This option prints the output of debug mPDF into the specified file. For example, log: @alias(root) ~ '/pdflog.txt'.
protection (default: null) - This option requires the Plus plan and can be used to restrict the actions that users can perform on the PDF file. You can pass an array of strings or a JSON string with the following values to enable the protection mode with the Plus plan (to make the PDF compatible with ISO, BSI, and DIN standards):
- copy - Copy text and graphics.
- print - Print in low resolution.
- modify - Modify the contents of the document.
- annot-forms - Add annotations and form fields.
- fill-forms - Fill in existing form fields.
- extract - Extract text and graphics.
- assemble - Combine pages and documents.
- print-highres - Print in high resolution.
- no-user-password - Open a document without password.

For example, protection: ["copy", "no-user-password"] or protection: '["copy", "no-user-password"]' will allow users to copy text and graphics and open the document without a password, but will disable all other actions than copy text.

You can also choose these options globally by checking the options in the Plugin Settings and overwriting them in the pdfOptions parameter.

Custom fonts

This is an example of how to use custom fonts, specifically Roboto-Regular.ttf and Roboto-Italic.ttf, which should be placed in the config folder:

fontdata: { 'roboto' : {
            'R' : 'Roboto-Regular.ttf',
            'I' : 'Roboto-Italic.ttf'
        }},
        fontDir: "{{craft.app.path.configPath}}/",

After the update of MPDF, which is used by our PDF Generator, we have resolved an issue with passed paths. Now, you must provide an absolute path on the server to the config directory. Alternatively, you can pass the main folder. For instance, on ISP Config 3.2 host, you can use: fontDir: /var/www/clients/client0/web21/private/config/.

If you're running a single site, it should be an absolute path to the /config folder, like fontDir: /path_to/config/.

For XAMPP in Windows hosts, the confirmed format is working fontDir: file:///C:/xampp/htdocs/craft4/config/.

Return values

If the destination is inline or string, the plugin returns a string.
If the destination is download or file, it returns the filename in the /web folder.
If an error occurs during the PDF generation, the methods will return false.

Loop example

You can generate multiple PDF files in a loop. For example, you can generate a PDF file for each entry in a section:

{% for item in craft.entries.section('xxx').orderBy('title asc').all() %}
    {% set pdfOptions = {
        date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U'),
    } %}
    <a href="
    {{alias('@web')}}/
    {{craft.documentHelper.pdf("_pdf/document.twig", "file",  'pdf/' ~ item.id ~ '.pdf' ,item, pdfOptions)}}
    " download>
        DOWNLOAD {{item.title}}
    </a>
{% endfor %}

Twig template example

Here is an example of a Twig template that can be used to generate a PDF document:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>{{ entry.title }}</title>
    <style>
        body {
            font-family: 'DejaVu Sans', sans-serif;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>{{ entry.title }}</h1>
    <p>{{ entry.variable }}</p>
</body>
</html>
...

Adding PDFs to Assets

You can add generated PDF files to your Craft assets. To do this you need to specify the filename using the @root path. The following example demonstrates its usage with a volume that has the handle pdffiles:

{% set pdfOptions = { date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U') } %}
{% set asset = craft.documentHelper.pdfAsset('_pdf/document.twig', alias('@root')~'/example.pdf', entry, pdfOptions, 'pdffiles') %}
{% if asset %}
    <a href="{{asset.url()}}?v={{asset.dateModified|date('U')}}">Download PDF</a>
{% else %}
    The file was not generated.
{% endif %}

In this example, a timestamp is added to the file URL to ensure the file is refreshed when it changes, beneficial for various caching solutions like CDN Cache & Preload, Blitz, or CDNs like Cloudflare.

Advanced `pdfAsset` Method Options

By default, the title of the PDF is based on the filename. However, you can override this along with other settings using pdfOptions:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    ...
    assetTitle: "My Awesome Title",
    assetFilename: "MyAwesome_Filename.pdf",
    assetDelete: true,
    assetSiteId: 2,
    }
%}

In this example:

assetTitle sets a custom title.
assetFilename sets a custom filename.
assetDelete when set to true, the file in the @root path is deleted and regenerated every time this code runs.
assetSiteId sets the site ID of the generated PDF to the site with another ID. You can also use string variables for assetTitle and assetFilename, such as the entry title:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    ...
    assetTitle: entry.title,
    assetFilename: entry.title~".pdf",
    }
%}

These options give you greater flexibility in customizing the generated PDF assets.

Including Images in PDF

There are two ways to include images in the PDF template.

If you're using the Image Toolbox plugin, you can include images like this:

{% set image = entry.photoFromCMS.one() %}
{% set transformSettings = {
    width: 100,
    height: 200,
    mode: 'stretch'
} %}
{% set options = {
  class: '',
  alt: '',
} %}
...
{{craft.images.picture(image, transformSettings, options)}}

You can also include an image in a PDF document without a plugin, like this:

{% set image = entry.photoFromCMS.first() %}
    {% if image is not null %}
        <img src="{{image.url}}" alt="">
    {% endif %}

Thumbnail of Generated PDF on Frontend

You can use PDF Thumbnails by @scandel for client-side generation of PDF thumbnails. This requires the files pdfThumbnails.js, pdf.js, and pdf.worker.js to be loaded in the /web folder. The pdf.js and pdf.worker.js files from PDF.js can be found here.

Here's an example:

<script src="{{alias('@web')}}/pdfThumbnails.js" data-pdfjs-src="{{alias('@web')}}/pdf_js/build/"></script>
<script src="{{alias('@web')}}/pdf_js/build/pdf.js"></script>
<script src="{{alias('@web')}}/pdf_js/build/pdf.worker.js"></script>
                {% header "Cache-Control: no-cache" %}
<a href="{{alias('@web')}}{{version("/" ~ craft.documentHelper.pdf('_pdf/document.twig', 'file', 'pdf/example.pdf'  , entry, pdfOptions))}}">
<img class="img-responsive" data-pdf-thumbnail-file="{{alias('@web')}}/pdf/example.pdf" src="{{alias('@web')}}/pdfjs_placeholder.png">

Generating on backend and Displaying Thumbnails by PDF Generator by `assetThumb` option to add into Assets on `pdfAsset` method

To display the Image Thumbnail added to the Craft CMS Twig template you may use the following options:

{% set pdfOptionsAsset = {
    assetThumb: true
    }
%}
{% set asset = craft.documentHelper.pdfAsset('_pdf/document.twig', alias('@root')~'/test.pdf', entry, pdfOptionsAsset, 'pdfFiles') %}
{% if asset %}
{% set assetThumb = asset.assetThumb %}

<a href="{{asset.url()}}?v={{asset.dateModified|date('U')}}">
  {% if assetThumb %}
  <img src="{{ assetThumb.url() }}?v={{ assetThumb.dateModified|date('U') }}" />
  {% else %}
  The thumbnail is not available
  {% endif %}
</a>
{% else %}

If you want to add an image into another Volume than the PDF file you may override PDF options with option assetThumbVolumeHandle, in this example this will be set into the pdfimages volume handle:

{% set pdfOptionsAsset = {
    assetThumb: true,
    assetThumbVolumeHandle: "pdfimages"
    }
%}

Generating on the backend and Displaying Dumb Thumbnails by PDF Generator by `dumbThumb` option to default `pdf` method

To add thumbnails generated with the old pdf method you may use the following code:

{% set pdfOptionsDumb = {
    date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U'),
    dumbThumb: true,
    }
%}
<a href="{{alias('@web')}}/{{craft.documentHelper.pdf('_pdf/document.twig', 'file', 'pdf/example.pdf', entry, pdfOptionsDumb)}}">
    <img src="{{alias('@web')}}{{ '/pdf/example.jpg' }}" />
</a>

Generating on the backend and Displaying Thumbnails of PDF Assets by external PDF Transform plugin

To generate an image thumbnail of a PDF asset, you can use the PDF Transform plugin. Please note, that the feature requires ImageMagick.

Here's an example of how to generate and display a thumbnail:

{% set pdfOptions = { date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U') } %}
{% set asset = craft.documentHelper.pdfAsset('_pdf/document.twig', alias('@root')~'/example.pdf', entry, pdfOptions, 'pdffiles') %}
{% if asset %}
<a href="{{asset.url()}}?v={{asset.dateModified|date('U')}}">
    {% set transformedPdf = craft.pdfTransform.render(asset) %}
    <img src="{{ transformedPdf.url }}?v={{transformedPdf.dateModified|date('U')}}" />
</a>
{% endif %}

What if I cannot generate Thumbnails with enabled ImageMagick?

If you encounter the following error with PDF Transform:

attempt to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy `PDF' @ error/constitute.c/IsCoderAuthorized/421

On our plugin error is in your Craft CMS in /runtime/logs/web.log and the image is not generated in pdf or pdfAsset:

Imagick Error: attempt to perform an operation not allowed by the security policy `PDF' @ error/constitute.c/IsCoderAuthorized/421

This means ImageMagick's security policy is preventing operations on PDF files. To fix this, you'll need to modify the policy.xml file located at /etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml or /etc/ImageMagick-7/policy.xml, depending on your ImageMagick version.

Find and modify the policy related to PDFs to allow the desired operation. Be cautious, as changing this file can have security implications. Make sure you understand the risks and consequences. Here's an example of how to change a policy from disallowing all operations to allowing read-and-write operations:

<!-- Before -->
<policymap>
  <policymap domain="coder" rights="none" pattern="PDF" />
</policymap>

<!-- After -->
<policymap>
  <policymap domain="coder" rights="read | write" pattern="PDF" />
</policymap>

Then restart your PHP FPM service if you are using it. If you're unsure about modifying this file, consider reaching out to your hosting provider's support team for assistance.

Custom Title of PDF Document

To set a custom title for your PDF, use the title option in the pdfOptions as follows:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    ...,
    title: "My awesome Title"
} %}

Custom Variables

You can use custom variables in your Twig template. To do this, add an associative array or variable to the custom parameter in the pdfOptions array. The keys of this array or passed variable will be available as variables in your Twig template.

String or Number

To pass a string or number to the PDF template, set it as a custom variable in the pdfOptions:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    ...,
    custom: variable
} %}

Then, in your PDF template, you can call upon this custom variable:

{{custom}}

Arrays

If you want to pass an array to the PDF template, define the array in the custom variable in the pdfOptions:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    ...,
        custom: {
       slug: entry.slug,
       created: entry.dateCreated,
       ...
    }
} %}

You can then access the array variables in your PDF template:

{{custom.slug}}
{{custom.created.format('d/m/Y')}}

Custom Page Break in PDF Document

You can add a page break in your PDF document by using the <pagebreak> tag in your Twig template.

<p>Content before the page break.</p>
<pagebreak />
<p>Content after the page break.</p>

Page and All Pages Numbers

You can add page numbers and the total number of pages to your PDF document by using the {PAGENO} and {nbpg} placeholders in your Twig template, header or footer.

<p>Page {PAGENO} of {nbpg}</p>

Generate PDF File Only When Entry Data is Changed

You can set the PDF Generator plugin to only generate a new PDF file when the data of an entry is changed. To do this, use the following pdfOptions to ensure that a PDF is only generated when the data in an entry has been updated:

{% set pdfOptions = {
        date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U'),
    } %}

Filename Characters

The filename of the generated PDF file can only contain alphanumeric characters, underscores, and hyphens. When selecting a filename for your PDF, ensure that you only use safe characters. The following characters are not allowed in Windows filenames: ":", "/", "?", "|", "<", ">" or "/".

Browser Caching Issues of PDF Files on Some Servers and Hosting

Some servers and hosting environments may cache PDF files, which can cause issues when you're trying to view the latest version of a generated PDF file. To prevent this, you can add a unique query string to the URL of the PDF file.

If you are experiencing issues with your server or hosting caching PDF files, you can use the Static Files Autoversioning plugin. This plugin adds a timestamp to your PDF, helping to avoid caching issues.

<a href="{{alias('@web')}}{{version("/" ~ craft.documentHelper.pdf('_pdf/document.twig', 'file', 'pdf/book'  ~ '.pdf'  ,entry, pdfOptions))}}">LINK </a>

With this plugin, your PDF will have a timestamp and any caching policy problems with your hosting will be resolved. The following is an example of what the PDF link will look like:

<a href="http://some-domain.com/pdf/book.pdf?v=1668157143">LINK </a>

Downloading Multiple PDF Files with JavaScript on Any Page

You can download multiple PDF files with JavaScript on any page. To do this, you can use this example with the pdf method to specify entries for which you want to generate PDF files.

<script>
{% set pdfOptions = {
    date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U')
} %}
var files = [
    "{{ alias('@web') }}/{{craft.documentHelper.pdf('_pdf/document.twig', 'file', 'pdf/' ~ entry.dateCreated|date('Y-m-d') ~ random(10) ~ '.pdf', entry, pdfOptions)}}",
    "{{ alias('@web') }}/{{craft.documentHelper.pdf('_pdf/document.twig', 'file', 'pdf/' ~ entry.dateCreated|date('Y-m-d') ~ random(10) ~ '.pdf', entry, pdfOptions)}}"
];
for (var i = files.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
    var a = document.createElement("a");
    a.target = "_blank";
    a.download = "download";
    a.href = files[i];
    a.click();
};
</script>

Example with a loop on channel section xxx for items on array:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    date: entry.dateUpdated|date('U')
} %}
<script>
var files = [
{% for item in craft.entries.section('xxx').orderBy('title asc').all() %}
    "{{alias('@web')}}/{{craft.documentHelper.pdf('_pdf/document.twig', 'file', 'pdf/' ~ item.id ~ '.pdf', item, pdfOptions)}}"
    {% if loop.last %}{% else %}, {% endif %}
{% endfor %}
];
for (var i = files.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
    var a = document.createElement("a");
    a.target = "_blank";
    a.download = "download";
    a.href = files[i];
    a.click();
};
</script>

Example with pdfAsset method

You can download multiple PDF files with JavaScript on any page. To do this, you can use the pdfs parameter looped through the pdfAsset method to specify an array of entries, in this example items of channel section xxx for which you want to generate PDF files.

{% set pdfs = [] %}
{% for item in craft.entries.section('xxx').orderBy('title asc').all() %}
    {% set pdf = craft.documentHelper.pdfAsset('_pdf/document.twig', 'file', 'pdf/' ~ item.id ~ '.pdf', item, pdfOptions) %}
    {% set pdfs = pdfs|merge([pdf]) %}
{% endfor %}

In your JavaScript code pass pdfs from Craft CMS, you can then loop over the passed pdfs array and trigger the download of each PDF file.

<script>
    var pdfs = JSON.parse('{{ pdfs|json_encode|raw }}');
    pdfs.forEach(function(pdf) {
    window.open(pdf.url, '_blank');
    });
</script>

Optional packages

Navigate to the PDF Generator plugin, and click on the "Optional functions to enable" section. You will see a list of buttons to install for each optional package and set individual settings.

Display QRCode

Prepare the qrdata string that contains the information you want to encode in the QRCode. The format of the qrdata string depends on the type of information you want to attach. You need to install an optional package in the Plugin Settings Optional pane. Here are some common formats:

For a website link, you can just use the URL of the website, such as https://cooltronic.pl/
For plain text, you can use any message you want, such as Hello, world!
For contact information, you can use the vCard format, which is a standard for exchanging personal data, such as BEGIN:VCARD\nVERSION:3.0\nN:Potacki;Pawel\nTEL;TYPE=work,voice;VALUE=uri:tel:+99-888-777-666\nEMAIL:[email protected]\nEND:VCARD
For a WiFi configuration, you can use the WIFI format, which is a simple way to share network settings, such as WIFI:S:MyNetwork;T:WPA;P:MyPassword;;

Example:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    ...
    qrdata: "https://cooltronic.pl"
    ...
}
%}

In the Twig template, insert the QRCode image where you want by using this code:

<img src="{{qrimg}}">

Where {{qrimg}} is the variable that holds the image from the package PHP QRCode generator.

You can install the package manually when you encounter problems in automatic installation for Craft CMS 3 (you need 3.4) and for 4 (you need 4.3) version of the optional package for display QR Code generation. This is an example of to how install to your main Craft (@root) installation directory:

# Craft CMS 4, 5.0.0.alpha
composer require chillerlan/php-qrcode:^4.3
# Craft CMS 3
composer require chillerlan/php-qrcode:^3.4

RTL Text Direction

The PDF Generator plugin supports right-to-left (RTL) text direction. To enable RTL text direction set the HTML dir attribute in your HTML Twig template markup. For example:

<div dir="rtl">This is some text in a right-to-left language.</div>

Language

To specify a language in mPDF, you can use the lang attribute in your HTML. For example:

<div lang="ar">هذا نص باللغة العربية</div>

Font

For mPDF to display the correct characters, you'll also need to use a font that supports the characters of the language you're using. mPDF comes with several fonts that support a wide range of characters. You can set the font using the CSS font-family property. For example, to use the Arial font:

div {
    font-family: 'Arial';
}

RTL full-example

Full example of Arabic text:

<div dir="rtl" lang="ar" style="font-family: Arial;">هذا نص باللغة العربية</div>

Add Watermark

Watermarks can be added to your PDFs using mPDF parameters. This can be either in the form of an image or text.

Add Image Watermark

You can include a PNG or JPG image as a watermark in your PDF. Specify the path and file extension of your image in the watermarkImage parameter.

For example:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    'watermarkImage': 'path/to/your/image.ext'
} %}

Replace path/to/your/image.ext with the actual path and file extension of your image.

Add Text Watermark

You can also add a text watermark to your PDF. Simply specify your desired text in the watermarkText parameter.

For example:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    'watermarkText': 'My text watermark example'
} %}

Replace 'My text watermark example' with the actual text you want to use as a watermark.

Generate PDF Table of Contents

You can create your Table of Contents as per the guidelines in the mPDF ToC specification.

Additionally, we can enable the automatic generation of a Table of Contents from H1-H6 tags present in your PDF document. You can activate this feature by setting the autoToC option to true.

For instance:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    'autoToC': true
} %}

Generate PDF Bookmarks

Manually adding bookmarks can be done with the bookmark tag <bookmark content="Text" />. The content attribute is used to set the text of the bookmark. You can also use the optional level attribute to set the nesting level of the bookmark.

Additionally, we can enable the automatic generation of Bookmarks from H1-H6 tags present in your PDF document. You can activate this feature by setting the autoBookmarks option to true. To do that set:

{% set pdfOptions = {
    'autoBookmarks': true
} %}

Requirements

This plugin supports Craft CMS 3.0 or above, including 5.0.0.alpha, 4.0 or above, starting from version 2.2.0 of the plugin in the master branch.
For Craft CMS version 3.x, we used version 0.x of branch craft3 of the plugin (up to version 0.4.x) which is deprecated. Please install version 2.0 or above instead.
For Craft CMS version 4.x, we used version 1.x of branch master of the plugin (up to version 1.3.x) which is deprecated. Please install version 2.0 or above instead.

Support

For inquiries regarding custom PDF work, such as generating templates or modifying plugins, please reach out to us via our contact page.

Credits

Special thanks to the developers and testers who have contributed to this project and helped identify and fix bugs:

License

This project is licensed under the Craft License. See the LICENSE.md file for details.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 99 Commits
resources		resources
src		src
.craftplugin		.craftplugin
.gitignore		.gitignore
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
LICENSE.md		LICENSE.md
README.md		README.md
composer.json		composer.json

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cooltronicpl/Craft-document-helpers

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Craft CMS PDF Generator (Versions 3.x and 4.x, 5.0.0.alpha)

Contents

Installation

Usage

pdf method Parameters

Parameters pdfAsset method

Securely Displaying PDF Documents in the Browser Without Saving to the /web Folder

Variables in the template

How to use custom templates by code block and URL

How to use custom variables with code block

Overriding Default Options

Custom fonts

Return values

Loop example

Twig template example

Adding PDFs to Assets

Advanced pdfAsset Method Options

Including Images in PDF

Thumbnail of Generated PDF on Frontend

Generating on backend and Displaying Thumbnails by PDF Generator by assetThumb option to add into Assets on pdfAsset method

Generating on the backend and Displaying Dumb Thumbnails by PDF Generator by dumbThumb option to default pdf method

Generating on the backend and Displaying Thumbnails of PDF Assets by external PDF Transform plugin

What if I cannot generate Thumbnails with enabled ImageMagick?

Custom Title of PDF Document

Custom Variables

String or Number

Arrays

Custom Page Break in PDF Document

Page and All Pages Numbers

Generate PDF File Only When Entry Data is Changed

Filename Characters

Browser Caching Issues of PDF Files on Some Servers and Hosting

Downloading Multiple PDF Files with JavaScript on Any Page

Example with pdfAsset method

Optional packages

Display QRCode

RTL Text Direction

Language

Font

RTL full-example

Add Watermark

Add Image Watermark

Add Text Watermark

Generate PDF Table of Contents

Generate PDF Bookmarks

Requirements

Support

Credits

License

About

Resources

License

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases 41

Packages 0

Contributors 3

Languages

`pdf` method Parameters

Parameters `pdfAsset` method

Advanced `pdfAsset` Method Options

Generating on backend and Displaying Thumbnails by PDF Generator by `assetThumb` option to add into Assets on `pdfAsset` method

Generating on the backend and Displaying Dumb Thumbnails by PDF Generator by `dumbThumb` option to default `pdf` method

Packages