Views PDF

With this module you can output a view as a PDF document. Each field of the view can be placed on the PDF page directly in the administration interface. Therefore a new display called "PDF" is added.

There are already some PDF solutions such as Print. But these solutions use the HTML output and converts this to PDF. The downsides of such an integration are:

• No control over page flow (e.g. page break).
• Little or no control over page header and footer.
• You need HTML skills to change the layout.
• The rendering is slow and need a lot of memory, because it needs to render the HTML.
• Complex tables make troubles.
• Vector graphics can not be implemented, therefore the printing of the document can be problematic.
• You are limited by HTML's capabilities.
• No hyphenation.

You can also specify a background PDF document. This enables you to put unlimited static content to the dynamic PDF. This static PDF can be exchanged dynamically by using a File Field. The PDF can be created by any PDF creator such as Adobe Acrobat Professional or Open Office.

Possible Use Cases are:

• PDF invoice for Ubercart
• A print at home solution
• Printable Version of your website

Documentation

Please go to https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/modules/views-pdf to check installation and requirements.

Currently Implemented Features

• Element can be placed on the PDF with options:
  • Font
  • Color
  • Size
  • Position (incl. relative positions)
• Background template (also a PDF)
• Table / unformatted style implemented
• Background template depending on node field
• Mime Mail Integration (PDF can be send by e-mail with Rules
• Including and appending PDF Views
• Text hyphenation based on LaTeX hyphenation patterns.
• PDF Views can be saved as files on the server by Rules.

Version 3 release

Release 7.x-3.x adds some major improvements to Tabular Output as well as headers/footers and template management. There are some changes to configuration, especially table mode, so configurations will need re-visiting after upgrading. This is the main reason these updates have been gathered into a new major release number. See release notes for more details.

Release 3.1

Adds a new format option for printing in a grid layout, good for label sheets.

Legacy info:

Sending of PDF via Mail

This functionality is not any more part of this project. It has been moved in to separate projects:

• Mime Mail: Views PDF Mime Mail projected for Drupal 6 as well as for Drupal 7
• Mass Mailing / Subscriptions: Mass Messaging projected only for Drupal 7

At the moment both modules does not support really the sending of PDF. The integration / implementation of those is on the top of the to do list.

Future Work

1. Enhance the User Interface (The positioning of the fields is too complex.)
2. Integration of a cache mechanism (depending on the views cache settings).
3. Implementing a way to support math formula.

Credits

Original created by www.customweb.ch.

Now maintained by: killua99 support the module development at https://ko-fi.com/killua99