I have a requirement to print a bill from the AIR application.
Following are the constraints.
I need to print to a DotMatrix Printer.
I have a complex layout with header, footer and a datagrid with data rolling out to more that one page.
I need to have a template to which I will be passing my object.
The suffice with the usage of Jasper reports, but I have no server side support.
I tried the FlexReport, bentbit and other tools which is optimized for the DotMatrix printers.
Is there a alternative to get the above requirements done. Is there any alternative similar to that of jasper reports without going for a server.
Thanks in advance.
You don't need server to do printing, look at PrintJob class. You can print any sprites on page, and for tables there is PrintDataGrid class with paging support. So, if you can render your complex layout, you can print it. You may want to install some virtual printer for experimenting (I'm using Primo PDF, but there are others.)
Guys i used the HTML to print from the JavaScript. I made templates in HTML with delimiters matching the print layout, then i passed a Associative Array with necessary details to be printed and passed it on to HTML and printed it from there. Thanks for your replies guys..
Related
I have a website with the following structure:
Tab Container - having 4 Tab panels
Each tab panels is having 4 gridviews which are separated by line break.
Now when i am in a particular tab, I want to use an 'export to pdf' button , which should generate a pdf having 4 gridviews visible in this tabpanel. Same for all other tabpanels.
I have searched enough, found may articles telling about using itextsharp, wkhtmltopdf, pdf generators etc, however I dont seems to find fully implemented functionality anywhere.
Can anyone guide/suggest anything ?
I always use wkhtmltopdf to convert a html page to pdf. (you will need server access to install it though)
It works very well, looks the same as the web site and saves text as actual text (in vectors).
I've used CutePDF's API and they seem to work pretty well.
http://www.cutepdf.com/Solutions/
You can do this in two ways, either handle it on your server or use a third party service.
If you want to convert a html page to a PDF on your server, you can use wkhtmltopdf (A simple shell utility to convert html to pdf using the webkit rendering engine, and qt.) I haven't used it with .NET however have seen many examples.
If you like to use a third-party service www.impdf.com could be used, It's a free service. You do not need to register even. I once have used it but not for a long time( I later switched to wkhtmltopdf get some performance gain).
It depends on your requirements which method you must use. In any case if using impdf is enough for you,
Convert this page to a PDF
A4 page: impdf.com?url=http://www.yourwebsite.com&--page-size=A4
Letter page: impdf.com?url=http://www.yourwebsite.com&--page-size=Letter
Adobe ColdFusion has a tag called <CFPDF> built in.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/10.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec22c24-7995.html
Furthermore it has web services which which can bridge the gap to ASP.Net
I need to collect data from a visitor in an HTML form and then have them print a document with the appropriate fields pre-populated. They'll need to have a couple of signatures on the document, so it has to be printed.
The paper form already exists, so one idea was to scan it in, with nothing filled out, as an image. I would then have the HTML form data print out using CSS for positioning and using the blank scanned form as a background image.
A better option, I would think, would be to automatically generate the PDF with this data, but I'm not sure how to accomplish either.
Suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated! =)
I would have to respectfully disagree with Osvaldo. Using CSS to align on a printed document would take ages to do efficiently in the aspect of cross-browser integration. Plus, if Microsoft comes out with a new browser, you're going to have to constantly update for the new use in browsers.
If you know any PHP (Which, if you know JavaScript and HTML, basic PHP is very simple), here's a good library you can use, FDPF:
Thankfully, PHP doesn't deprecate a whole lot of methods and the total code is less than 10 lines if you have to go in and change things around.
You can control printed documents acceptably well with CSS, so I would suggest you to try that option first. Because it's easier.
This is actually a great php library for converting HTML to PDF documents http://code.google.com/p/dompdf/ there are many demo's available on the site
XSL-FO is what I would recommend. XSL-FO (along with XSLT and XPath) is a sub-standard of XSL that was designed to be an abstract representation of a formatted document (that contains, text, graphic elements, fonts, styles, etc).
XSL-FO documents are valid xml documents, and there exist tools and apis that allow you to convert an XSL-FO documet to MS Word, PDF, RTF, etc. Depending on the technology you use, a quick google search will tell you what is available.
Here are a few links to help you get started with XSL-FO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XSL_Formatting_Objects
http://www.w3schools.com/xslfo/xslfo_intro.asp
http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl11/
I am using asp.net 2.0 with c#.
I have to convert my label text into pdf. For this I have used this tutorial
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/Creating_PDF_documents_in.aspx
now I am facing two problems:
Every time it is creating 1.pdf, what if there are so many user wants to see the the pdf format of any page
As my label text contains HTML content, it is showing a HTMl output. I don't want HTML to be display in the pdf.
please let me know if you have any other way to create a pdf.
Thanks in advance.
Creating a PDF with HTML-formatted content is not entirely trivial, and the CodeProject sample code isn't quite suitable for that. You'll most likely want to look into a (commercial) third-party solution for this: I myself use Siberix Report Writer: it's flexible, quite affordable, works in partial-trust scenarios (nice for shared web hosting environments) and most importantly doesn't require a per-server license, so you can embed it in your product without redistribution issues.
Item 1) You cache your pdf files to disk. When a request is made for a pdf check if the pdf has been created (i.e. there is a file on disk) and if not generate it. Then send the pdf using the response.writefile command
Item 2) If you are trying to print formatted html into pdf then you will need something that is capable of rendering html. There are a number of html to pdf converters however I have not found them to be all that good. If you are comfortable with php then there are some pretty good converters you can use. Joomla supports html to pdf, so whilst it may not be the exact solution it maybe a good starting point.
I would also suggest you take a look at Aspose PDF.
I would suggest using RDLC Report or Crystal Reports as suggested by #Jeroen
Cete Pdf Generator has HtmlTextArea element and supports some limited HTML
http://www.cete.com/support/net_help_library/html/ceTeDynamicPDFPageElementsHtmlTextArea.htm
ABCpdf is another commercial component which converts html to pdf.
http://www.websupergoo.com/abcpdf-5.htm
You could try the itextsharp library. I've not used it but it has been highly commended by other developers I know. http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/
In regards to the caching issue. I would check the file system for a pdf named via a convention. If the file is found then serve it. Otherwise, call another method which generates the pdf and saves it to the drive. This way only the first ever request will cause the generation of the pdf. Naming conventions will be key here. The basic implementation wont be thread safe. But it's a good start.
I use CrystalReports. It can create a PDF on the fly and output it to disk or http directly.
Simple situation. I'm trying to write my own blog with a minor twist. Part of the blog will be controlled from a client application instead of a web interface. Basically, I'm still in the design phase and haven't written a single line of code. But I'm trying to combine several techniques into an interesting exercise in software development. Thus I want a client application which I can use to write articles in, which can then upload the article through a web service to the server. (The client would be Delphi 2007/WIN32 and the service is ASP.NET/C# with SQL Server.)
The article itself would be stored in RTF format, including images. This would be in a local database on the client, which would also keep track of the article's status. Once uploaded, it will keep the article synchronised with the version on the server. Technical details are just boring and as said before, still in a design phase...
But I do need a good solution to convert the article from RTF in the database to HTML to be displayed in the blog. I have two options:
Upload both the RTF and HTML from the client, with the client doing the convertion from RTF to HTML.
Upload just the RTF and let it convert on demand on the server. (Or convert on the server when the RTF is uploaded.)
Option 1 would need a Delphi/WIN32 solution to convert it while option 2 would need a .NET solution for the conversion. I don't want an RTF editor for .NET but need a good option to use in Delphi 2007. And I need something to convert an RTF to HTML, which would keep (almost) all formatting and which would include all images from the text. This could be both in .NET or Delphi.
So, I have the following questions:
Is there a good, free RTF editor for Delphi which can handle images?
Is there a good RTF-to-HTML converter for Delphi or C# which can keep as much of it's formatting intact as possible, including images?
Some good suggestions for .Net:
Convert Rtf to HTML
Since you provided so much background about why you are doing it, I am going to provide some feedback on the whole plan. This may not be an answer to your question directly though. Sorry.
You might consider looking at Windows Liver Writer for the client. If you just implement an API it supports then it can do all the editing.
Also, I would suggest skipping RTF all together. Converting from RTF to HTML will loose some formatting, and typically create sub-optimal HTML. Creating an RTF with the sole intent of converting to HTML is a less than optimal solution.
Instead keep it HTML for the round trip. If you must use RTF, then limit the RTF formatting to the HTML formatting you want to support. That way the conversion will be more accurate. Then convert as soon as possible, providing a preview for the poster. Since it won't always convert accurately you want the poster to see any of the conversion oddities before they make them public. That way they can fix them before they are embarrassed.
You'd better take a look at TRichEditWB component in EmbeddedWeb component pack. The whole pack is open-source:
http://www.bsalsa.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=29
You can add image, and even controls like buttons and checkboxes to TRichEditWB. It also can hilight HTML and XML code, and recognize URLs automatically.
I'm looking at ways to embed PDF viewing in a Flex application.
Currently the only option I've seen is by using the flash.html.HTMLLoader class, which only works if you're using AIR. This isn't a big deal -- I'm willing to use AIR if I have to -- but based on my experimentation with viewing a PDF this way it appears that AIR simply integrates the embedded Adobe PDF browser Plug-in for viewing, which not only shows the PDF page(s), but provides all of the manipulation controls as well (zooming, printing, etc.) which I don't want to see.
I'm looking for something that works somewhat along the lines of the JPedal library for Java -- an embedded component that simply renders the PDF alone.
Has anyone found a way to do this with either AIR's built-in component or via some other method?
There are a couple of ways, but neither actually have the PDF in the Flex App:
Convert the PDF to SWF. Use this tool or one like it to convert the file over.
Use HTMLComponent, a method that uses an iframe over your flash/flex to make it appear like an external page is in your app. There are a few downsides to this method however - most of them described in detail at Deitte.com.
What you want is possible with AIR and described in this Adobe article:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/quickstart/scripting_pdf.html
Take a look at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/quickstart/embedding_assets/ and see if it helps.
I don't think you can embed PDF files directly (but I'm not really sure) but if you totally need to do it and you don't want to open a new window you could convert the PDF to another format that can be inserted in your app.
If your goal is to simply display the PDF in the Flex environment then you could use the IFrame approach. You can find an example here http://www.deitte.com/archives/2006/08/finally_updated.htm
By using this approach you can load any HTML content which includes PDF's.
Take a look.
Okay guys here is the exact one we're looking
http://subinsugunan.blogspot.com/2009/06/embed-pdf-in-flex-application.html