remove theme from controller action to output PDF

Yii 2.0 General Discussions
1

I am trying to use TCPDF to output PDF files to the browser.

To do this, I need to disable all themes so the PDF is send without ANY output from yii before the PDF starts sending.

I thought I could do this with:


$this->layout = false;

But it is still giving me the error


TCPDF ERROR: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF file

I also tried


public $layout = '';

and

public $layout = false;

and several other variations with no change.

It looks like TCPDF is working otherwise…

How can be sure YII2 only outputs the file I need? Something is sending out the text/html headers and spoiling the PDF transfer.

Thanks

-John

2

I haven’t tried this, but you should probably set the header?


header('Content-type: application/pdf');

There are dedicated Yii2 extensions to deal with PDF, by the way.

3

TCPDF is trying to send new headers and the browser is complaining about the fact that headers have already been sent. That is why I need to figure out how to keep YII2 from sending anything.

There are 4,495 ( roughly… ), extensions to deal with PDF. Do you have one to two that you actively use and recommend?

Thanks

-John

4

You to to teach Yii what the correct reponse is, of course.

https://github.com/robregonm/yii2-pdf

I would have posted some code, but this editor is horrible :)

http://www.yiiframework.com/doc-2.0/guide-runtime-responses.html#sending-files

5

Personally I`m using this to send pdf file to the browser, then user can download or open the file in browser if he have plugin installed.




Yii::$app->response->sendFile($path, $name, ['inline' => false])->send();

To render/create and so on PDF files im using this extension and im very happy with it:

http://demos.krajee.com/site/mpdf

6

MPDF looks like a popular package, but I don’t need/want to turn html into a pdf.

I actually need to generate a PDF file with very specific layout requirements that I am importing from an older system. While I could probably reformat the reports into html and print them, I already have the layout information in a format ready for page layout and converting the reports would be a very time consuming project.

TCPDF looks like it gives me all the control of the layout that I need. Plus, I can sent it html later if I need to.

I just need to figure out how to keep YII from spewing out anything before the content/pdf headers.

Thanks

-John

7

Did you look at what the yii2-pdf guys are doing in their code?

It shows exactly how to stop Yii from sending any wrong headers. ;)