PDF Generator

The "PDF Generator" module enables you to generate PDF files based on any data.

Please note, templates for generation of PDF files are needed to be individually coded for this module to work. Usually these are coded directly by AtroCore Team or by our Solution Partner.

Please note, for pdf generation chrome is required on your server. It is used for PDf generation.

PDF document can be generated for:

• single item, eg some product
• list of items, eg list of products.

Please note, templates are created based on HTML/CSS. So anything is possible, what is possible with a modern HTML/CSS technology.

System Requirements

To use template with Libre Office (ODT) format, you have to install LibreOffice on your server On ubuntu server, you can use the following command:

sudo apt-get install libreoffice

Administrator Functions

"PDF Generator" module has no administrator settings.

User Functions

PDF Creating for Single Item (e.g. Product)

If a template for creating of PDF for a single item is available following option appears in the actions menu on the detail page of the respective entity:

Click on "Generate PDF" to open the new window, where you have additional configuration options:

Here you can select the template (if you have more than one), which can be created for or by you. You can open the pdf document in a new tab or download it directly with the fine name you have defined previously.

It is also possible to create PDF directly from list page. Open the actions menu for the respective record and choose " generate PDF" for that.

Generated PDF looks exactly as defined in your template:

You can save pdf as a File (to do it check the checkbox when generating pdf). Pdf and file default names are similar to products name plus SKU (after "-").

Please note, saving PDF as a File fastens generating new PDFs for this product because new PDFs will be created from a File.

PDF Templates

PDF Templates are usually created by our team but if you want to do it yourself there is such an option. To get access to the templates go to Administration/PdfTemplate. Here you can see all templates created and edit/create one. PDF templates use TWIG template engine. Please check https://twig.symfony.com/ for syntax. There are 2 types: Html Template and ODT Template. CSS and HTML are also supported for editing templates of type Html. You can use an ODT document as file template for pdf template of type ODT.

Select an Entity type for a template. Each template has an input language configured in syntax. For different languages of the same entity you will need different templates.

Chrome is installed and Ghostscript is installed check if chrome and Ghostscript are installed on the server. Chrome is required for PDFs to be generated and Ghostscript is required for Ghostscript parameters to function.

Ghostscript parameters allow you to modify a file created by generator (to minimize usage of server space for example). The script on the picture, "-sColorConversionStrategy=Gray -dProcessColorModel=/DeviceGray -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4" turns files created by generator in black and white ones, for example, to minimize usage of server space.

If your template is too big so you are afraid of timeouts, use Use queue manager - now PDF will be created anyway (but it will be in queue manager).

For conventional naming schemas use File Name Template.

HTML/CSS TYPE

PDF template field is your main body of a template. If you need additionally generated header and footer Page number markup in the header and Page number markup in the footer are there. They are configured same as PDF template field. So, if you need, for example, number of pages you can use pageNumber in the footer. If you want regular updates for a file, use Replace existing file checkbox - it will save a lot of server space.

Table of contents is not available by manual configuring but we can program it additionally.

LIBRE OFFICE (ODT) TYPE

Template File is the odt template file, Variables field is a json object that contains keys and values, occurrences of {key} with be replaced by the corresponding value in your template file. you can use twig syntax to build that object.