Databases
StackOverflow2013
Postsdbo
POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
 

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals
  1. POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
    primarykey
    data
    text
    <p>I am a PHP developer and in one of my projects, I need to convert some HTML documents (about 30 to 50 pages) into PDF documents.</p> <p>My search has turned up the following possible solutions. Among them are some PHP libraries and some command line applications. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.</p> <p><strong>PHP libraries:</strong></p> <ol> <li>fpdf (need more effort to convert)</li> <li>tcpdf (need more effort to convert) </li> <li>html2fpdf <a href="http://html2fpdf.sourceforge.net" rel="noreferrer">http://html2fpdf.sourceforge.net</a></li> <li>html2pdf <a href="http://html2pdf.fr/" rel="noreferrer">http://html2pdf.fr/</a></li> <li>dompdf <a href="http://code.google.com/p/dompdf/" rel="noreferrer">http://code.google.com/p/dompdf/</a> (compared to other, works well)</li> </ol> <p>For each library, I have problems like:</p> <ol> <li>Takes a long time (more than five minutes to convert 30 HTML pages)</li> <li><p>Requires too many resources (memory and time) </p> <p>(I set the following parameters in php.ini:</p> <p><code>max_execution_time = 600</code><br> <code>memory_limit = 250M</code></p> <p>but things still don't work.)</p></li> <li><p>Needs HTML pages to be well-formatted (e.g. no missing close tags)</p></li> </ol> <p><em>All of these work when I try to convert simple HTML docs (five or fewer pages with little CSS)</em></p> <p><strong>Command line applications</strong></p> <p>All command line apps work perfectly and very quickly compared to the above libraries, but only when I run them directly on console. When I try to use them in PHP with <code>exec()</code> or <code>system()</code>, they give me errors.</p> <p>The following are the command line applications and their errors when I run them in PHP:</p> <ol> <li><p>html2pdf (<a href="http://www.tufat.com/s_html2ps_html2pdf.htm" rel="noreferrer">http://www.tufat.com/s_html2ps_html2pdf.htm</a>)</p> <blockquote> <p>html2pdf:11380): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0<br> No protocol specified</p> </blockquote></li> <li><p>wkhtmltopdf</p> <blockquote> <p>Loading page: 10%<br> Loading page: 33%<br> Loading page: 100%<br> Waiting for redirect<br> Outputting pages<br> QPainter::begin(): Returned false<br> QPainter::begin(): Returned false<br> QPainter::save: Painter not active<br> QPainter::scale: Painter not active<br> QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints<br> QPainter::setBrush: Painter not active<br> QPainter::pen: Painter not active<br> QPainter::setPen: Painter not active</p> </blockquote></li> <li><p>htmltopdf (<a href="http://www.ultrashareware.com/html-to-pdf.htm" rel="noreferrer">http://www.ultrashareware.com/html-to-pdf.htm</a>)</p></li> </ol> <p>So now I am looking for help. Can anyone answer:</p> <p><strong>Which PHP library would work well in my case?</strong> </p> <p><strong>Why do these errors occur in command line applications?</strong></p>
    singulars
    1. PO
      singulars
      1. PTAnswer
    1. This table or related slice is empty.
    1. PTQuestion
    1. USCommunity
    1. USSantosh Sonarikar
    plurals
    1. PL
      singulars
      1. LTLinked
    1. PL
      singulars
      1. LTLinked
    2. PL
      singulars
      1. LTLinked
    3. PL
      singulars
      1. LTLinked
    1. This table or related slice is empty.
    1. PO
      singulars
      1. PTAnswer
    2. PO
      singulars
      1. PTAnswer
    3. PO
      singulars
      1. PTAnswer
    1. VO
      singulars
      1. POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
      1. This table or related slice is empty.
      1. VTUpMod
    2. VO
      singulars
      1. POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
      1. USSantosh Sonarikar
      1. VTFavorite
    3. VO
      singulars
      1. POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
      1. This table or related slice is empty.
      1. VTUpMod
    1. COThe error "Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0.0" is because the app uses the windowing system. I would guess that the error occurs because the app tries to open the PDF after its generation?
      singulars
      1. POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
      1. USrogeriopvl
    2. COno , it not open pdf after generation. But it open a small window while using it in console.
      singulars
      1. POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
      1. USSantosh Sonarikar
    3. COBecause there are so many questions similar to this one but not quite the same, I decided to try to collect a complete list of HTML to PDF converters into a community wiki question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3178448/list-of-html-to-pdf-converters
      singulars
      1. POConverting HTML to PDF (not PDF to HTML) using PHP
      1. USrjmunro
 

Querying!

 
Guidance
A row detail

Detail views are divided into sections. All the information in the data section comes from columns in the selected row. The other sections display data from other, related rows.

Related data can be related in a to-one or a to-many fashion. Captions of data related in a to-many fashion link to a list view showing a filtered view of the table.

Try moving around until you find a non-empty to-many entry and click on the label to get to one. You can move back to the root by clicking on the database name in the header.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload