Generate PDF Add-On

On this page:
Generate a PDF from a single Foswiki page

Usage 

[[%SCRIPTURL{genpdf}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%][Printable]]

ParentTopic
   - FirstChild
      - GrandChildOne
      - GrandChildTwo
   - SecondChild
      - GrandChildThree
If you add '?pdfrecursive=on' to the URL parameters, all of the topics will be rolled into the PDF.

Configuring the Script

The script can be configured either via URL parameters or web preference variables. URL parameters have precedence over web preference variables. If neither of these are present, the script will use hard-coded default variables. The general script configuration variables are explained in the next section while header/footer and title page configuration are explained in subsequent sections.

General Configuration

The following table shows the various configuration variables and their meaning. The first column gives the variable to use if passed in the URL. The second column shows the variable to use if using a Foswiki preference variable (i.e. Set VARIABLE = ). The third column gives the default value if neither the URL nor Foswiki preference variable is used. Note that URL variables have precedence over Foswiki preference variables. For a more detailed description of the HTMLDOC related variables, see the HTMLDOC documentation at http://www.htmldoc.org.

URL Variable Foswiki Preference VariableSorted ascending Default Value Example Explanation
pdfbanner GENPDFADDON_BANNER   Foobar Documentation System Used to override the banner of a title page.
pdfbodycolor GENPDFADDON_BODYCOLOR undef #CCff99 Specify the background colour of all pages
pdfbodyimage GENPDFADDON_BODYIMAGE   background.jpeg The image that will appear tiled in the background of every page
pdfcopyright GENPDFADDON_COPYRIGHT %WEBCOPYRIGHT% Copyright 2009 Should PDF Metadata include the Foswiki %WEBCOPYRIGHT% or another value. If set to 0, copyright is excluded. If set to any other string, the string is included in the metadata. Htmldoc has a bug and appends the copyright to the author metadata, which can break some document management systems that depend on the metadata. Set to 0 to exclude the copyright from the PDF metadata.
cover GENPDFADDON_COVER print print.nat Default cover to use for PDF generation
pdfdebug GENPDFADDON_DEBUG 0 1 Include debug messages and don't clean up temporary files after execution
pdfdestination GENPDFADDON_DESTINATION view   Output to browser window or save-as prompt
pdfduplex GENPDFADDON_DUPLEX undef True Option flag to set up the document for duplex printing. Headers and footers will swap position on alternating pages. Set it to anything for true.
pdffirstpage GENPDFADDON_FIRSTPAGE toc   First page viewer will open: toc table of contents; p1 first page; c1 first chapter.
pdffooter GENPDFADDON_FOOTER   .1. Specify content of footer, see http://www.htmldoc.org
pdfformat GENPDFADDON_FORMAT pdf14 pdf12 HTMLDOC output format
pdfheader GENPDFADDON_HEADER   .1. Specify content of header, see http://www.htmldoc.org
pdfheadershift GENPDFADDON_HEADERSHIFT 0 +3 Shift all headers up or down (for negative values) by this amount (e.g. H1 would become H3 for a value of 2).
pdfheadertopic GENPDFADDON_HEADERTOPIC   GenPDFHeaderFooterTopic The name of a topic that defines headers and footers using <-- HEADER LEFT "foobar" --> syntax
pdfheadfootfont GENPDFADDON_HEADFOOTFONT   Helvetica-Bold Font specification for headers and footers.
pdfheadfootsize GENPDFADDON_HEADFOOTSIZE   12 Sets the size of the header and footer text in points (1 point = 1/72nd inch)
pdfkeywords GENPDFADDON_KEYWORDS %FORMFIELD{"KeyWords"}% 'foo, bar, baz, zip' Used for PDF Keywords META info to help search engines
pdflogoimage GENPDFADDON_LOGOIMAGE   logo.jpeg The logo that will appear in a header or footer if you specify 'l' in the string (see http://www.htmldoc.org)
pdfmargins GENPDFADDON_MARGINS undef top:0.5in,bottom:2.5cm,left:12pt,right:15mm Specify the page margins (white space to edge of page)
pdfnumberedtoc GENPDFADDON_NUMBEREDTOC undef True Option flag for getting numbered headings and Table of Contents. Set it to anything for true.
pdforientation GENPDFADDON_ORIENTATION portrait landscape The page orientation (e.g. landscape or portrait)
pdfpagelayout GENPDFADDON_PAGELAYOUT single   View's initial presentation layout: single, one, twoleft, tworight
pdfpagemode GENPDFADDON_PAGEMODE outline   Viewer's initial presentation mode: outline, document, fullscreen
pdfpagesize GENPDFADDON_PAGESIZE a4 letter The page size for PDF output
pdfpermissions GENPDFADDON_PERMISSIONS undef print,no-copy PDF Security permissions to disable print/copy etc. By default the PDF is not protected.
pdfrecursive GENPDFADDON_RECURSIVE undef on Include children of the base topic in the PDF
skin GENPDFADDON_SKIN pattern nat Default skin to use for PDF generation
pdfstruct GENPDFADDON_STRUCT book webpage use book for structured topics, i.e. when rendering a bunch of topics recursively; use webpage when printing a topic without a specific heading structure, i.e. if it is just a normal webpage or if it has got a special VIEW_TEMPLATE
pdfsubject GENPDFADDON_SUBJECT %FORMFIELD{"TopicHeadline"}% 'Foobar document creation' Used for PDF Subject META info to help search engines
pdfsubtitle GENPDFADDON_SUBTITLE   A short guide to creating foobar documents  
pdftitle GENPDFADDON_TITLE   Writing Foobars  
pdftitledoc GENPDFADDON_TITLEDOC     The name of an attachment of pdftitletopic; if specified ,becomes the title page. Allows images - see htmldoc manual
pdftitletopic GENPDFADDON_TITLETOPIC   GenPDFTitleTopic The name of a topic that defines the layout of the title page
pdftocfooter GENPDFADDON_TOCFOOTER ..i .i. See http://www.htmldoc.org/
pdftocheader GENPDFADDON_TOCHEADER ... l.. See http://www.htmldoc.org/
pdftoclevels GENPDFADDON_TOCLEVELS 5 3 Number of levels to include in the PDF table of contents (use 0 to disable the generation of a table of contents). Note that HTMLDOC generates a table of contents based on HTML headers in the page.
pdfwidth GENPDFADDON_WIDTH 860 1060 The pixel width of the browser (used to scale images--images wider than this will be truncated)

If using Foswiki preference variables, copy them to the appropriate web preferences page. This plugin does not read settings from this topic!

Limiting the PDF Generation Region

The add-on allows the user to define the region of the topic that should be included in the PDF generation (much like the Foswiki %STARTINCLUDE% and %STOPINCLUDE% variables. In this case, HTML comments are used instead. Everything between these two comments will be included in the PDF generation. The rest of topic will be excluded.

Note that there can be multiple PDFSTART and PDFSTOP comment pairs in a single topic to selectively include/exclude multiple sections of the topic in the PDF document. (If you view this page in raw mode or edit it, you'll see an example of multiple PDFSTART/PDFSTOP sections to exclude the Foswiki table of contents). If no PDFSTART/PDFSTOP comment pair appears in the topic, the entire topic text is used. In general, this should not be a problem except for title topics that include forms as the form meta-data will show up in a fairly illegible manner at the end of the document. Therefore, for topics that reference forms, a PDFSTART comment should be placed at the beginning of the topic and a PDFSTOP should be placed at the end.

TIP NOTE: all %META: tags are removed from the base topic. If you want to display form data, you should add %FORMFIELD{"field"}% tags to the topic or title topic.

Creating and Configuring a Title Page

The add-on allows the user to use a topic as a title page for PDF generation. Earlier versions of the add-on required that the title page be expressed using pure HTML as the title page topic was not Foswiki rendered. The latest version of add-on, however, does full Foswiki rendering of the title topic page like any other Foswiki topic. In addition, the following variables can be passed with the URL to override their settings elsewhere (e.g. in the web preferences or Foswiki preferences pages).

Also note that the PDFSTART and PDFSTOP HTML comments should be placed at the beginning and end of title topic. An example title page can be found at GenPDFExampleTitleTopic.

Creating and Configuring Headers and Footers

The add-on also allows the user to configure header and footer formats for both the main section of the document and the table of contents. Configuring the main header and footer is much like configuring a title page. You can select a Foswiki topic to use for the header and footer. Remember to wrap the HTML comments that HTMLDOC uses for the header and footer between <!-- PDFSTART --> and <!-- PDFSTOP --> tags. The add-on will perform Foswiki common variable substition within the HTMLDOC header/footer HTML comments. This will allow Foswiki variables (such as %REVINFO{web="%WEB%" topic="%BASETOPIC%"}%) to be embedded in the headers and footers.

See the HTMLDOC documentation at http://www.htmldoc.org for details of the format of the header and footers. In addition, the genpdf script will perform variable substition for the %GENPDFADDON _BANNER%, %GENPDFADDON _TITLE%, and %GENPDFADDON _SUBTITLE% variables as it does for the title page. Finally, the PDFSTART and PDFSTOP HTML comments should be placed at the beginning and end of header/footer topic. An example header/footer page can be found at GenPDFExampleHeaderFooterTopic.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I stop the table of contents from being generated?
For some topics, like User topics, it doesn't make any sense to have a table of contents generated so add 'pdftoclevels=0' as a URL parameter.
When I do a recursive PDF of WebHome it doesn't include all topics
That's because some topics distributed with Foswiki don't have a parent association. If you really want to include every topic in the web, you should reparent them all with WebHome as the parent.
Ocassionally no PDF document is generated
The default structure of book requires that headings be present in the topic. Try setting pdfstruct=webpage

Add-On Installation Instructions

Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this add-on. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the add-on on the server where Foswiki is running.

File: Description:
bin/genpdf  
data/System/GenPDFAddOn.txt Add-on topic
data/System/GenPDFAddOnDemo.txt Demonstration topic
data/System/GenPDFExampleHeaderFooterTopic.txt  
data/System/GenPDFExampleTitleTopic.txt  
htmldoc_force_header.patch  
lib/Foswiki/Contrib/GenPDF.pm  
lib/Foswiki/Contrib/GenPDFAddOn/Config.spec  
templates/view.genpdf.tmpl  

Known Bugs 

*** htmldoc-1.8.24/htmldoc/ps-pdf.cxx   Sat Oct 30 05:53:59 2004
--- htmldoc-1.8.24/htmldoc/ps-pdf_force_header.cxx      Tue Jun 13 02:12:28 2005
***************
*** 1465,1471 ****

      pspdf_prepare_heading(page, print_page, pages[page].header, top,
                            page_text, sizeof(page_text),
!                         page > chapter_starts[chapter] ||
                              OutputType != OUTPUT_BOOK);
      pspdf_prepare_heading(page, print_page, pages[page].footer, 0,
                            page_text, sizeof(page_text));
--- 1465,1472 ----

      pspdf_prepare_heading(page, print_page, pages[page].header, top,
                            page_text, sizeof(page_text),
! /*                      page > chapter_starts[chapter] || */
!                         1 || /* force heading onto chapter front page */
                              OutputType != OUTPUT_BOOK);
      pspdf_prepare_heading(page, print_page, pages[page].footer, 0,
                            page_text, sizeof(page_text));

Add-On Info

Add-on Author: Foswiki:Main/BrianSpinar, Foswiki:Main/WadeTurland, Foswiki:Main/GeorgeClark
Change History:  
28 Feb 2009 Added missing Config.spec file Item1161: GenPDFAddOn result in "Not Found" page
Feb 2009 Conversion to Foswiki. Better <a and <img tag handling. Rewrote attachment handling to use Func:: API Rewrote recursive mode to use %SEARCH
24 Dec 2008 Added FIRSTPAGE, DESTINATION, TITLEDOC, PAGELAYOUT & PAGEMODE. fixed tag rendering, again. Now accepts either quote. Incorporated body extraction patch; made it work for title pages. removed outdated comment from example title page. Limited testing; use previous version if that makes you nervous. -- Foswiki:Main/TimotheLitt
02 Jul 2008 added support for VIEW_TEMPLATE and COVER; fixed rendering of anchor and img tags; added pdfstruct parameter to print unstructured webpages as well; Foswiki:Main.MichaelDaum
25 Jun 2008 added template activation and Configure script spec file Foswiki:Main.SvenDowideit
25 Jun 2008 security and Foswiki 4.2 fixes Foswiki:Main.SvenDowideit
2 Nov 2007 Added new header and footer control (Bugs:Item4916) and fixed generation of wrong Foswiki page (Bugs:Item4915)
23 Oct 2007 Fixed Bugs:Item4452 & Bugs:Item4885, compatibility with Perl 5.6 and missing images with SSL certificates
31 Aug 2007 Fixed Bugs:Item4530, improper rendering of lists
13196 Removed nop tags before sending to htmldoc, fixed Bugs:Item3549
11673 Foswiki:Main/RickMach updated MIME type to pdf from x-pdf, fixed bug preventing disabling the TOC
9716 Foswiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie added content-disposition header to files, so they download using a sensible file name
9683 Foswiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie updated for Foswiki-4
Version 0.6 (28 Jun 2005)
  • Less aggressive regex for removing foswikiNewLink spans so it doesn't break when using the Foswiki:Extensions.SpacedWikiWordPlugin
  • TIP Added 'recursive' preference to include chapters for all descendents of the base topic
  • Use File::Spec->tmpdir to specify the default directory for temporary files
Version 0.5 (16 Jun 2005)
  • Redirect to 'oops' URLs if permission denied or topic does not exist.
  • Removed foswikiNewLink spans from title page so they render as normal text (without the blue ? mark).
  • Fully qualify image/href URLs on the title page.
  • Changed temp files to use OO style 'new File::Temp;' for better code portability.
Version 0.4 (13 Jun 2005)
  • Better security (now calls system($Foswiki::htmldocCmd, @htmldocArgs) )
  • Checks return code of htmldoc and returns an error on failure
  • Validation of preferences
  • ALERT! Preferences changed to comply with Plugins standard
  • Better HTML3.2 compatibility for htmldoc 1.8.24 (downgrades a few elements)
  • Full integration of PDF META tags (optionally using 2 FORMFIELDs):
    • ==%FORMFIELD{"TopicHeadine"}%== for PDF Subject field
    • ==%FORMFIELD{"KeyWords"}%== for PDF Keywords field
    • all other PDF fields use topic info
  • More htmldoc options (margins, permissions, numbered TOC, logoimage, headfootfont) using preferences
  • Removed %TOC% fields so it only uses HTMLDOC's TOC
  • Title topic and header/footer topics are now fully rendered
  • Fixed the heading shifting function
  • Fully qualify links, making the document portable
  • HTMLDOC output goes to a temp file instead of stdout
  • Temp files now use 'GenPDFAddOn' prefix. (Eg. /tmp/GenPDFAddOn1wr3C48ibd.html)
Version 0.3 (12 Apr 2005)
  • Added full Foswiki rendering to title topic page
  • Added Foswiki common variable expansion to header/footer topic page
Version 0.2 (26 Mar 2005)
  • Fixed bug with table of contents generation (i.e. it was always generated even if pdftoclevels was set to 0)
  • Now allow multiple PDFSTART/PDFSTOP pairs within a single page to include/exclude multiple sections of the same page
  • Added Brent Robert's fix to allow operation with latest version (1.8.24) of HTMLDOC
Version 0.1 (30 Jan 2005)
  • Initial version
CPAN Dependencies: File::Temp (if for some reason you don't already have it installed )
Other Dependencies: HTMLDOC (http://www.htmldoc.org)
Perl Version: 5.005 or above
License: GPL
Add-on Home: http://foswiki.org/Extensions/GenPDFAddOn
Feedback: http://foswiki.org/Extensions/GenPDFAddOnDev
Appraisal: http://foswiki.org/Extensions/GenPDFAddOnAppraisal

Related Topic: ContributedAddOns

-- TWiki:Main/WadeTurland - 28 Jun 2005
-- TWiki:Main/BrianSpinar - 12 Apr 2005 Form definition 'PackageForm' not found

Edit form

System.PackageForm?

ExtensionClassification?: Data and Files
ExtensionType?: PluginPackage?
Compatibility?: Linux, Foswiki 1.0.0 No longer compatible with TWiki. Requires htmldoc.
DemoUrl?: http://
DevelopedInSVN?: Yes
ModificationPolicy?: PleaseFeelFreeToModify?
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