Prawn-Rails

Install

gem 'prawn-rails'

Note: prawn and prawn-table are dependencies of prawn-rails so there is no need to mention it in the projects Gemfile unless you want to use a specific version of either of those libraries.

Usage

Create a view with pdf as format and prawn as handler so filename should look like example.pdf.prawn.

It provides a helper called prawn_document which builds a PrawnRails::Document with default options. You can override any options as you please. Example:

prawn_document do |pdf|
  pdf.text "Hello World"
end

No need to call pdf.render, it is called by prawn_document.

You can customize the name of the generated PDF and the file's delivery format with the :filename and :disposition keys:

prawn_document(filename: "my-file.pdf", disposition: "attachment") do |pdf|
  pdf.text "Direct download incoming!"
end

You can also override the content disposition using the Content-Disposition HTTP header. If you've already set this, prawn-rails will not override it. Here's an example of setting the header directly:

def download
  respond_to do |format|
    format.pdf do
      headers["Content-Disposition"] = "attachment; filename=\"charts-#{Time.now.to_i}.pdf\""
    end
  end
end

You can also override the file's name from the controller via @filename:

def show
  @filename = "my_report.pdf"
end

If no options are given, the file's name will match to your browser's default and the delivery format will default to inline.

Default configuration

Add a prawn-rails.rb config to your Rails app under config/initializers like this:

PrawnRails.config do |config|
  config.page_layout = :portrait
  config.page_size   = "A4"
  config.skip_page_creation = false
end

Please note that these are the defaults.

For a list of all available options: http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/prawn/Prawn%2FDocument:initialize.

For a list of all metadata the the :info option supports, please see https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn/blob/master/manual/document_and_page_options/metadata.rb.

If skip_page_creation is set to true then you have to create the first page yourself. Example:

pdf.start_new_page
# OR
pdf.start_new_page size: "A4", page_layout: :portrait

Examples

Hello World

# hello.pdf.prawn

prawn_document do |pdf|
  pdf.text 'Hello World!'
end

Using Active Record

# myproducts.pdf.prawn

prawn_document do |pdf|
  pdf.text 'Current Products are:'
  pdf.move_down 20
  pdf.table @products.collect{|p| [p.name,p.price]}
end

Using Custom options

# landscape.pdf.prawn

prawn_document(page_layout: :landscape) do |pdf|
  pdf.text 'Landscape Page!'
end

Without using the prawn_document helper

doc = PrawnRails::Document.new(page_layout: :landscape)

doc.text "Page 1"
doc.start_new_page
doc.text "Page 2"

pdf_str = doc.render

Credits

Maintained by Weston Ganger - @westonganger

Created by Carlos Ortiz - @cortiz