I need to generate a PDF file with some information i get from a database, i'm using PHPExcel in order to do this, but here is the thing, when i click the button `report` so i get all the information and put it into the PDF, i get a lot of "garbage" in my page, this garbage it's like when you try to open a PDF with notepad and it just shows random symbols.
Here is how i do it
I'm using an $.ajax call to get all the information displayed into a form:
$.ajax({
// gets all the information and puts them into the form and several tables
});
Then i add an event handler to the button report so that i send the request id to a php script which will gather the necessary information to fill the report
report.on('click',function(){
$.ajax({
url : '../../php/reports/requestReport.php',
type : 'post',
data : {'idRequest' : id },
dataType : 'json',
success : function(response){
console.log(response);
},
error : function(response){
if(response.responseText != undefined)
$('body').append(response.responseText);
console.warn(response);
}
});
});
And on my php file i have something like this:
<?php
require '../functions.php';
require '../classes/PHPExcel.php';
if(isset($_POST['idRequest']))
$idRequest = $_POST['idRequest'];
else{
$idRequest = false;
echo json_encode(array("ExitCode"=>1,"Message"=>"idRequest Not Received","Location"=>"requestReport.php"));
}
if($idRequest){
try{
// get all the data
// save the request and send it to the report
$excel = new PHPExcel();
//Initializing
$excel->getProperties()->setCreator("TTMS")
->setLastModifiedBy("TTMS")
->setTitle("Request update $idRequest");
$excel->setActiveSheetIndex(0)
->setCellValue('C1', 'Request For Q.A. / Q.C. / Testing');
// Rename worksheet
$excel->getActiveSheet()->setTitle("$idRequest");
// Set active sheet index to the first sheet, so Excel opens this as the first sheet
$excel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
// Redirect output to a client’s web browser (PDF)
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="Update_Request_'.$idRequest.'.pdf"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($excel, 'PDF');
$objWriter->save('php://output');
} catch(PDOException $ex){
echo json_encode(array("ExitCode"=>2,"Message"=>$ex->getMessage(),"Location"=>"requestReport.php PDOException"));
}
So long story short i get garbage on the page where the form is. I think it has something to do with the fact that i'm doing this via ajax but i need to do this so the echo's i have to report the errors in my code.
You're writing the PDF output inside an existing HTML page
$('body').append(response.responseText);
The browser assumes everything displayed in an HTML page is HTML markup, not a stream of binary data.
Direct the output to a new browser window if success.
Write all the output to an HTML file, then use wkhtmltopdf -> http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/ to convert it to PDF. It works awesome!
Here is code you would use to create your html file:
if (!$handle = fopen('/path/to/folder/your_file.html', 'w')) {
die("Cannot open file for write");
}
$data_string = "<html><body></body></html>"; //all your html output goes here, formatted correctly, etc
// Write somecontent to our opened file.
if (fwrite($handle, $data_string) === FALSE) {
die("Cannot write to file");
}
Then once that is successful you convert it to PDF, then remove the old html file
// convert to PDF
$output = shell_exec('wkhtmltopdf --page-size Letter /path/to/folder/your_file.html /path/to/folder/your_file.pdf');
if (strpos($output,'Error') == false){
$output = shell_exec('rm /path/to/folder/your_file.html');
}else{
die("error creating pdf, please contact IT administrator.");
}
Now you have the PDF sitting in the location -> /path/to/folder/your_file.pdf which you can make the user download.