WISHLIST: HTML Document to PDF (Using Java)

Rennur

Wouldn't it be great if we could design and convert our own HTML document into PDF. There is a ton of HTML goodies and templates on the web already, from Invoices, tables, reports etc...

I might have already touched on this in previous posts, but there is open source java available to do just that already.

I'm sure this can be made part of core Aware product (probably at cost)

Here are some resources on this:

ITEXT®
Programmable PDF Software
http://itextpdf.com/

Flying Saucer
https://code.google.com/p/flying-saucer/
Flying Saucer takes XML or XHTML and applies CSS 2.1-compliant stylesheets to it, in order to render to PDF (via iText), images, and on-screen using Swing or SWT.

Convert HTML to PDF Using Java
http://hmkcode.com/itext-html-to-pdf-using-java/

Cheers

weblike

RLJB

If that could:

A. Help get rid of the report builder by using html rather than jasper

And / or

B. allow us to create javascript charts and get them into a PDF so we can mail them

Then that would be an epic win.

Rennur

I realise ExtJS not a HTML5 application development tool but I don't understand why we can't even save/export HTML documents as a .html file.

There a numerous open source HTML-PDF on the net. I've just tested one that converts HTML to PDF via command line.
http://wkhtmltopdf.org/

Another Apache product on top of Tomcat & ActiveMQ is:
The Apache™ XML Graphics Project
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/

Just throwing some ideas, might be useful.

WISHLIST:

1) EXPORT DOCUMENT function to work with HTML templates. Export as HTML or PDF
2) SAFE FORM MyBOhtmlForm OF Invoice TO FILE 'Invoice.html' (OR Invoice.pdf)

Cheers

Rennur

There is also

Apache PDFBox - A Java PDF Library
http://pdfbox.apache.org/

I need to get myself into a JAVA course asap 🙂

aware_support

Why cannot you use command line utility to convert HTML to PDF?

For example, this one:
http://webdesign.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=webdesign&cdn=compute&tm=111&f=00&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=3&bt=6&bts=6&zu=http%3A//www.convert-html-to-pdf.com/

You can produce am HTML file and then run this tool from your rules to create a PDF file. Then import it into the system and/or display.

Rennur

Correct me if I'm wrong, but HTML documents cannot be exported / saved to a file or document attribute in the first place.

Right? Any possible solution to this?

Cheers.

Rennur

BSV emailed. HTML documents not exported as HTML using EXPORT DOCUMENT.
They are exported to a unknown format but with .html extension.

Rennur

Good news from support,

This will be fixed in the next maintenance release.

Most of my reports will now be replaced by HTML, which will be converted to PDF via 3rd party command line utility.

Cheers

hpl123

Rennur wrote
Good news from support,

This will be fixed in the next maintenance release.

Most of my reports will now be replaced by HTML, which will be converted to PDF via 3rd party command line utility.

Cheers

Rennur, I am new to reports and haven´t starting creating mine yet but do you mind telling, what is the difference? Why are you doing over to html instead of PDF through the report designer? Also, are you not creating the html reports in the report designer?

Thanks

Rennur

Basically, you can design a document using CSS & HTML to look the way you want. HTML document also support SHOW SECTION_START for conditional data display.

I will be using HTML for Sales Quotes, Invoices, Receipts, Dockets, User defined HTML communication templates for use in emails and faxes etc...

I have not omit the use of Report Designer completely but I'd like to avoid that dinosaur as much as I can.

Rennur

Well there won't be an out of box HTML TO PDF conversion, probably won't need it now that EXPORT DOCUMENT bug was fixed in build 1812

Than you Support!

aware_support

HTML EXPORT DOCUMENT problem has been fixed in build 1812

Rennur

Support,

Thank you for fixing the HTML export. Now I can setup command line functions to convert it to PDF. Possibilities are countless 🙂

PRINT FORM function already exists, but can a similar function be created?
SAFE FORM MyBOhtmlForm OF Invoice TO FILE 'c:\docs\Invoice.html'

hpl123

Rennur wrote
Support,

Thank you for fixing the HTML export. Now I can setup command line functions to convert it to PDF. Possibilities are countless 🙂

PRINT FORM function already exists, but can a similar function be created?
SAFE FORM MyBOhtmlForm OF Invoice TO FILE 'c:\docs\Invoice.html'

I agree, the fixed HTML export is perfect. Having built-in PDF conversation would be a very nice thing to have as well.

Rennur

It would, but it is not on the roadmap.
This can be easily achieved via 3rd party software.

For this purpose, I'll be integrating
http://wkhtmltopdf.org/

Cheers

Rennur

Is there a way to specify the name (eg. Quote12345.html) to the HTML document when being EXPORTed TO FILE?. The same way the MSWord .doc documents can?

Problem:
EXPORT DOCUMENT myHTMLdocument TO FILE 'c:/mydocs/Quote<<Quote.ID>>.html'

What is expected:

The document to be exported using the Quote object ID eg.Quote123456.html
IMPORT DOCUMENT Quote.myDocument FROM 'c:/mydocs/Quote<<Quote.ID>>.html'

What happens:

The document is exported as the HTML template name used in the EXPORT DOCUMENT rule; myHTMLdocument.html
Can't store individual exported HTML documents in one folder.
Cannot use IMPORT DOCUMENT to import the right HTML document.
Cannot use EXECUTE PROGRAM to convert the right HTML document to PDF

Troubleshoot so far:

Did not specify .html extension in EXPORT action, the document is still exported as myHTMLdocument.html
This issue does not exist when using MsWord .doc document template. The IMPORT/EXPORT worked perfectly.

Solution:
HTML document templates should work the same way as .doc templates with IMPORT/EXPORT functions.

We use HTML templates extensively and & hope this would be fixed as soon as possible. All our Quotes, reports, dockets etc.. are HTML document templates.

Cheers.

Rennur

Small correction

What happens:

The document is exported as the HTML template name used in the EXPORT DOCUMENT rule; myHTMLdocument.html

What happens:

The document is exported as the name of the actual HTML file that is imported into the awareIM document template.

Also,

If exporting another HTML document into the same folder where one already exists, the system adds a auto increment number at the end of the name. eg. myQuoteHTML0.html