is there a way to generate pdf documents from latex in rails 3? We've been using rtex (http://rtex.rubyforge.org/) in a rails 2 application, however it doesen't seem to work with rails 3.
Our rails application generates invoices using a latex template which we also use to create invoices by hand. Hence we would have to maintain two templates if we had to find a different solution for the pdf generation in rails 3.
Best I found to do such things was to create the .tex files on the server, then call a rake task that ran a "pdflatex" system command.
It is pretty poor in performances I guess, but it's designed for a single admin and works fine for me, on my local machine, and I can use the same latex templates for my letters
Old question, but I'm sure this'll help anyone coming to this page now.
Take a look at the rails-latex (LatexToPdf) gem.
The LatexToPdf.generate_pdf method takes in two arguments:
tex content
a configuration hash
...and returns the pdf binary, which you'll have to write to a file.
I suggest reading through the source to if you need to add configuration.
Note that under the hood, the rails-latex gem still depends on a TeX extension (which you'll need to download) to generate the pdf. The default is pdflatex, and I've personally used xelatex.
As of the writing of this answer, this gem is described as a renderer for rails 3; though it now includes support for rails 4 and 5.
Related
I have recently started working with rails-latex on my Rails application. I would like to use a template when generating a pdf, but don't see any way to do so mentioned in the Github readme. Is there some sort of directory or method to adding LaTeX templates?
You're looking for the LatexToPdf.generate_pdf method.
It takes in two arguments:
latex content
a configuration hash
...and returns the pdf binary, which you'll need to write to a file.
Regarding the tex content, I have a directory with latex templates and would read in them using the File class, then pass in the content as an argument.
I suggest reading through the source to if you need to add configuration.
Note that under the hood, the rails-latex (LatexToPdf) gem still depends on a TeX extension (which you'll need to download) to generate the pdf. The default is pdflatex, and I've personally used xelatex.
I'm aware of pdf-stamper, but I'm trying to avoid switching everything to jruby right now.
I just need to "stamp" an image that I generate within the rails app (a PDF417 barcode) into a form field in the PDF document (there's an FDF; it's a document template kinda thing).
I'm filling out the text-based fields by just shelling out to pdftk, so if there's a way to do it using pdftk, I'd be fine with that, but I've looked high and low for one without any luck.
How about using a barcode font? some alternatives too. I haven't used that one but there may be others available too
I know I'm late to the party, but the PDF417 Rubygem should do what you need. https://rubygems.org/gems/pdf417 will generate it and if you have chunky_png installed you can easily write out PNGs to a file.
Was digging around my Rails applications and noticed that there are rails.rb files all over the place. In my ruby gems directories like:
...gems\devise-2.0.4\lib\devise\rails.rb
...gems\cucumber-rails-1.3.0\lib\cucumber\rails.rb
...gems\railties-3.2.3\lib\rails.rb
I am assuming that there are executed whenever you issue some command like "rails xxx". So all these extra rails.rb files combine with the original rails.rb file to essentially make one big rails.rb file. Essentially, when we type in "rails xxx" it goes thru all them all?
Just looking for some confirmation PLUS a little more knowledge about this. Thanks.
The best way to understand what these rails.rb files are doing, is to read the source code.
ralties
devise
cucumber-rails
As you can see, in any library the file assumes a different scope. The common behaviour is that the file rails.rb normally contains the code required to initialize the library when loaded from a Rails project.
BTW, this has nothing to do with the script/rails command and there is no "big rails.rb" file.
The files are not generated but are simply source files of these libraries you are using.
In this case they are probably rails-related classes that either extend Rails in some way or modify it or make the library interact with Rails.
Rails is a very common framework in Ruby land so most if not all libraries will have some sort of integration with Rails.
By no means are all of those loaded when you run rails XXX but rather when your application loads these libraries their rails.rb files may be executed to provide some sort of integration with Rails.
After several Google searches, it appears that the way to create PDFs in Rails from HTML and CSS (versus a new markup language) is to use Prince.
With licensing at $3800 for my non-big-commercial app, I'm wondering if this is, in fact, consensus or people have an alternative they can share the whats and hows.
You may check out prawn too. Tutorial can be found on railscasts.com.
This may fit the bill: http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/
We tried tow solutions:
using latex generate pdf, there is ruby gem code rtex
using java library iText, use it you may need rjb which allow you using java lib directly in ruby code, just like jruby, but you don't need build all you application on jruby.
I create tons of different PDF files on the fly from various data sources using Rails, including finest layout. I create need to create them for presenting products to customers.
After having tried all the tools mentioned above, Prince is the best tool for this task.
Prince's rendering quality & CSS support (better than some browsers) is its main selling point. If you're only generating documents with simple layouts, stick with Prawn.
What changes do you need to make to a Rails project to configure blueprintcss as the default stylesheet to be used when you generate scaffolding instead of scaffold.css?
I'd recommend writing your own generator, but if you want to alter the default you can:
1 - For a single app: Freeze rails and change the stylesheet the scaffold generator uses.
railsapp/vendor/rails/railties/lib/rails_generators/generators/components/scaffold/templates/style.css
2 - For all apps: Change the same style.css file in your systems rails installation.
Substitute your own scaffolding generation code. Instructions are here (with the caveat that they may be out of date).
An easier alternative may be to write a Rake action to do textual substitution in the (normally) generated source.
Look into Rails Templates.
You can write one to do much more than replace the css in a rails app. YOu can make it install gems, freeze rails, all kinds of things. Take a look at http://youvegotrails.com for an idea of what you can do.