tilt-pdf

Tilt::PDF

Integrates PDF generation into a Tilt flow for maxxed out ease of use.

Contrary to other solutions, all files will be rendered locally without relying on a web server. It follows that even if used in a web server, no concurrent requests are being made to render assets.

Dependencies

This gem depends on PDFKit, which in turn requires wkhtmltopdf. It is recommended to use the statically compiled version of the latter, as it is built against a patched QT that supports more features.

Usage as a Tilt template

Add tilt-pdf to your Gemfile. Also add any template engine you may optionally want, such as less or slim.

A foo template is currently threefold:

• foo.rpdf: this file is a YAML file containing options pertaining to the PDF generation process, such as page size, orientation, metadata, support files, headers and footers. Some options are passed as is to PDFKit, and subsequently to wkhtmltopdf.
• foo.html: this document can be written in any template language you need (such as ERB or Slim), and the Tilt template resolution system via extension chaining will apply. Tilt will pass the render block to be yielded to this document.
• foo.css: this stylesheet can be written in any template language you need (such as Sass or Less), and the Tilt template resolution system via extension chaining will apply. Tilt will pass the block to be yielded to this template, so you'd rather not yield if you fancy using .css.erb.

The three files must currently be stored in the same directory.

Rendering is done the usual Tilt way:

require 'tilt-pdf'

pdf = Tilt.new('foo.rpdf').render()

The rpdf file

This file contains options. If empty, it is made to 'just work' as summplemental files will be looked up according to its basename.

• main: document body, overriding the default derived from the basename.
• footer and header: html that will get used for (surprise!) header and footers.
• stylesheets: list of stylesheets to include (used for all html, incl. headers/footers). Defaults to one file from the basename.
• javascripts: list of javascripts to include (used for all html, incl. headers/footers). Defaults to one file from the basename.
• pdfkit: While a few PDFKit options are made available at the toplevel for convenience, this key passes all options as-is to PDFKit.

Example:

title: Foorever young
page-size: A4
orientation: landscape
grayscale: true
margin-left: 0
margin-right: 0
margin-top: 0
margin-bottom: 0
pdfkit:
    print-media-type: true
main: foorever_young.html.slim
stylesheets:
  - novel.css.less
  - common.css
javascripts:
  - page_numbering.js.coffee
footer: footer.html.slim

Filenames can be relative or absolute. When relative, they will be evaluated as based from the rpdf file.

Rails and ActionView integration

Starting with 0.10, this functionality has been split into its own gem. Use Tilt::PDF::Rails