PDFKit

Create PDFs using plain old HTML+CSS. Uses wkhtmltopdf on the backend which renders HTML using Webkit.

Install

PDFKit

gem install pdfkit

wkhtmltopdf

Usage

# PDFKit.new takes the HTML and any options for wkhtmltopdf
# run `wkhtmltopdf --extended-help` for a full list of options
kit = PDFKit.new(html, :page_size => 'Letter')
kit.stylesheets << '/path/to/css/file'

# Git an inline PDF
pdf = kit.to_pdf

# Save the PDF to a file
file = kit.to_file('/path/to/save/pdf')

# PDFKit.new can optionally accept a URL or a File.
# Stylesheets can not be added when source is provided as a URL of File.
kit = PDFKit.new('http://google.com')
kit = PDFKit.new(File.new('/path/to/html'))

# Add any kind of option through meta tags
PDFKit.new('<html><head><meta name="pdfkit-page_size" content="Letter")

Configuration

If you're on Windows or you installed wkhtmltopdf by hand to a location other than /usr/local/bin you will need to tell PDFKit where the binary is. You can configure PDFKit like so:

# config/initializers/pdfkit.rb
PDFKit.configure do |config|
  config.wkhtmltopdf = '/path/to/wkhtmltopdf'
  config.default_options = {
    :page_size => 'Legal',
    :print_media_type => true
  }
end

Middleware

PDFKit comes with a middleware that allows users to get a PDF view of any page on your site by appending .pdf to the URL.

Middleware Setup

Non-Rails Rack apps

# in config.ru
require 'pdfkit'
use PDFKit::Middleware

Rails apps

# in application.rb(Rails3) or environment.rb(Rails2)
require 'pdfkit'
config.middleware.use PDFKit::Middleware

With PDFKit options

# options will be passed to PDFKit.new
config.middleware.use PDFKit::Middleware, :print_media_type => true

TODO

  • add amd64 support in --install-wkhtmltopdf

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

  • Fork the project.
  • Setup your development environment with: gem install bundler; bundle install
  • Make your feature addition or bug fix.
  • Add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
  • Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)
  • Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Copyright (c) 2010 Jared Pace. See LICENSE for details.