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POEmailing A Dynamically Created PDF Through PHP
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copied!<p>I've recently created an online template for creating job postings for our website. Everything is all done, it formats correctly in a browser, automatically posts to our website, bla bla bla.</p> <p>The last piece I'm creating is to give the administrator a few options for distributing the posting to various places (via email) in a consistent, convenient way. I've created a PHP page that creates a PDF doc on the fly, using the TCPDF library. When loading pdf.php?id=X, the page displays a PDF with the content of job posting X. This means I'm never saving the PDF file to the server, just creating it on the fly each time it's called.</p> <p>But I want to attach this PDF to an email, and send it to various colleges, and internal mailing lists, etc. If I attach the pdf.php?id=x to the email, it doesn't attach the PDF, it attaches what appears to be a blank file, with the above name.</p> <p>Is it possible to attach this to the email without saving it to the server?</p> <hr> <p>Below added based on JM4's response for further trouble shooting. I have put the PDF file creation into a function, and put it into an include file, just to keep things easier to manage.</p> <pre><code>// random hash necessary to send mixed content $separator = md5(time()); $eol = PHP_EOL; // attachment name $filename = "_Desiredfilename.pdf"; include_once('pdf.php'); // encode data (puts attachment in proper format) $pdfdoc = job_posting_to_pdf($posting_id); $attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode($pdfdoc)); ///////////HEADERS INFORMATION//////////// // main header (multipart mandatory) message $headers = "From: Sender_Name<valid_email@mydomain.com>".$eol; //$headers .= "Bcc: email@domain.com".$eol; $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0".$eol; $headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"".$separator."\"".$eol.$eol; $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".$eol; $headers .= "This is a MIME encoded message.".$eol.$eol; // message $headers .= "--".$separator.$eol; $headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"".$eol; $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit".$eol.$eol; $headers .= $message.$eol.$eol; // attachment $headers .= "--".$separator.$eol; $headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$filename."\"".$eol; $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol; $headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol; $headers .= $attachment.$eol.$eol; $headers .= "--".$separator."--"; //Email message if(mail('valid_email@mydomain.com', 'test job posting', 'message body goes here', $headers)) { echo 'mail sent'; } else { echo 'error in email'; } </code></pre> <p>Here is a stripped down version of pdf.php:</p> <pre><code>function job_posting_to_pdf($job_id) { require_once(ROOT . 'assets/libs/tcpdf/config/lang/eng.php'); require_once(ROOT . 'assets/libs/tcpdf/tcpdf.php'); // create new PDF document $pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false); // set document information $pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR); $pdf->SetAuthor(''); $pdf->SetTitle('OPL Job Posting'); $pdf->SetSubject('Job Posting'); $pdf->SetKeywords('TCPDF, PDF, example, test, guide'); // remove default header/footer $pdf->setPrintHeader(false); $pdf->setPrintFooter(false); // set default monospaced font $pdf->SetDefaultMonospacedFont(PDF_FONT_MONOSPACED); //set margins $pdf->SetMargins(11, PDF_MARGIN_TOP, 11); //set auto page breaks $pdf->SetAutoPageBreak(TRUE, PDF_MARGIN_BOTTOM); //set image scale factor $pdf->setImageScale(PDF_IMAGE_SCALE_RATIO); //set some language-dependent strings $pdf->setLanguageArray($l); // --------------------------------------------------------- $pdf->SetFont('times', 'I', 9); $pdf->AddPage(); $left_cell_width = 60; $row_height = 6; $pdf->Image(ROOT . 'assets/gfx/logos/OPL-Logo.jpg', 0, 5, null, 16, null, null, 'N', false, null,'R'); $pdf->Ln('3'); if(!$row['internal']) { $pdf->Cell(0,0,'This position will be posted internally and externally, concurrently.',0,2,'C'); } else { $pdf->Cell(0,0,'Internal posting only.',0,2,'C'); } //Remainder of actual PDF creation removed to keep things simple return $pdf->Output("", "S"); } </code></pre>

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