Generate PDF(e-ticket) from html in Rails

In most of the projects we get requirements in which we need to send an attachment or download PDFs for order’s e-ticket or any certificate kind of things. So here I have written a post  for how to create PDFs from html using “pdfkit” gem.

Following are the steps for creating pdf from html views.

1. Add gem “pdfkit” in gemfile
2.  Download following 2 files
   • wkhtmltopdf-amd64 (from http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/downloads/detail?name=wkhtmltopdf-0.9.9-static-amd64.tar.bz2&can=2&q=)
   • wkhtmltopdf-i386 (from http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/downloads/detail?name=wkhtmltopdf-0.9.9-static-i386.tar.bz2&can=2&q=)
3. Create “bin” folder in your rails application folder and extract above files in this “bin” folder. These are the binaries which are needed for creating  pdf from html views.
4. Create “pdfkit.rb” in “config/initializers” folder of the application. And add following code

   #pdfkit.rb
   PDFKit.configure do |config|
     if ["development"].include?(Rails.env)
       #only if your are working on 32bit machine
       config.wkhtmltopdf = Rails.root.join('bin', 'wkhtmltopdf-i386').to_s
     else
       #if your site is hosted on heroku or any other hosting server which is 64bit
       config.wkhtmltopdf = Rails.root.join('bin', 'wkhtmltopdf-amd64').to_s
     end
     config.default_options = {
       :encoding=>"UTF-8",
       :page_size=>"A4",
       :margin_top=>"0.25in",
       :margin_right=>"0.1in",
       :margin_bottom=>"0.25in",
       :margin_left=>"0.1in",
       :disable_smart_shrinking=> false
     }
   end

5. Create a file e_ticket.rb in models folder as following

   # e-ticket
   class ETicket < AbstractController::Base
     include AbstractController::Rendering 
     include AbstractController::Helpers 
     include AbstractController::Translation 
     include AbstractController::AssetPaths 
     include Rails.application.routes.url_helpers 
     helper ApplicationHelper 
     self.view_paths = "app/views" 
     attr_reader :html 
     def initialize(order) 
       @order = order 
       @html = render_to_string(partial: "shared/e_ticket", :layout => false,
            :disposition => 'inline')
     end
     def pdf
       kit = PDFKit.new(@html)
       kit.stylesheets << "#{Rails.root}/app/assets/stylesheets/pdf.css"
       kit.to_pdf
     end
   end

In above code, we have added style sheet “pdf.css” in which we have to write the pdf related css rules. Keep this file as separate for pdf only .
Now you have your e-ticket ready to download and attach to any mail. You have to just create e-ticket by

eticket = ETicket.new(order)
pdf = eticket.pdf

yehhhhhh……………..its ready to download and attach.

Now I am writing brief for downloading and attaching the pdf to mail.

How to download eticket pdf.

In your orders controller you can create an separate action for downloading or you can do this in your orders show action in pdf response. Any way I am creating separate action for downloading order’s e-ticket pdf.

class OrdersController < ApplicationController
  def download
    @order = Order.find(params[:id])
    eticket = ETicket.new(@order)
    send_data(eticket.pdf, :filename => "e-Ticket #{@order.number}",
       :type => 'application/pdf')
  end
end

Sending e-ticket as attachment in mail

class OrderMailer < ActionMailer::Base
  def send_e_ticket(order)
    @order = order
    subject = " E-Ticket"
    eticket = ETicket.new(@order)
    attachments["E-Ticket #{@order.number}.pdf"] = eticket.pdf
    mail(:to =>”abc@gmail.com”, :subject =>”E-ticket”)
  end
end

Now send an mail using following code

OrderMailer.send_e_ticket(order).deliver

yippeeeeee…..Mail sent with attached e-ticket pdf.

THANK YOU