Using Dompdf in CodeIgniter 3.x

Convert html to pdf in CodeIgniter

Report is usually use when we want to responsibility a things. On the web we can generate report in many ways. One of them is convert html to pdf. In PHP, also we can find out the many library / plugins / helper to do it. Several of them like FPDF, TCPDF, DOMPDF, Html2Pdf and etc.

Dompdf - CodeIgniter 3

In this case I would like to share how can I generate report with DOMPDF together with CodeIgniter 3.x. Currenty the version I'm use is CodeIgniter 3.1.4 and the DOMPDF is version 0.6.x and 0.8.0

Dompdf 0.6.x - CodeIgniter 3

You can see the result in production with go to this link: ci-dompdf6 and the source code in Github ci-dompdf6.

Setup

1. Read my CodeIgniter-Config in Github: ci-config.
2. Change the value of $config['composer_autoload'] from $config['composer_autoload'] = FALSE; to $config['composer_autoload'] = "./vendor/autoload.php";
3. Go to composer.json in the root project and attach:

   {
     "require": {
       "dompdf/dompdf" : "0.6.*"
     }
   }
   

   To download dompdf package. Then run composer update. Wait a few second and your package is ready.
4. Create library with the name Pdfgenerator.php (you can name it free) and the code contains below:

   <?php
   defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed');
   
   define('DOMPDF_ENABLE_AUTOLOAD', false);
   require_once("./vendor/dompdf/dompdf/dompdf_config.inc.php");
   
   class Pdfgenerator {
   
     public function generate($html, $filename='', $stream=TRUE, $paper = 'A4', $orientation = "portrait")
     {
       $dompdf = new DOMPDF();
       $dompdf->load_html($html);
       $dompdf->set_paper($paper, $orientation);
       $dompdf->render();
       if ($stream) {
           $dompdf->stream($filename.".pdf", array("Attachment" => 0));
       } else {
           return $dompdf->output();
       }
     }
   }

5. Then in your controllers folder create Report.php and call your library $this->load->library('pdfgenerator'). To generate it call $this->pdfgenerator->generate(params). The full code you can see in this link.
6. In step number 5 the Report controller call the view table_report.php and it will generate to the report preview. The full code you can see in this link.
7. IMAGE ISSUES. Since dompdf 0.6.x, I cannot call assets like image with <?php echo base_url(); ?> (Codeigniter helper url) for load the image to report preview. So, to do that, I do <?php echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/yourasetsfolder/blabla.jpg or png" and it works.

Dompdf 0.8.x - CodeIgniter 3

You can see the result in production with go to this link: ci-dompdf8 and the source code in Github ci-dompdf8.

Setup

1. Read my CodeIgniter-Config in Github: ci-config.
2. Change the value of $config['composer_autoload'] from $config['composer_autoload'] = FALSE; to $config['composer_autoload'] = "./vendor/autoload.php";
3. Go to composer.json in the root project and attach:

   {
     "require": {
       "dompdf/dompdf" : "^0.8.0"
     }
   }
   

   To download dompdf package. Then run composer update. Wait a few second and your package is ready.
4. Create library with the name Pdfgenerator.php (you can name it free) and the code contains below:

   <?php
   defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed');
   
   require_once("./vendor/dompdf/dompdf/autoload.inc.php");
   use Dompdf\Dompdf;
   
   class Pdfgenerator {
   
     public function generate($html, $filename='', $stream=TRUE, $paper = 'A4', $orientation = "portrait")
     {
       $dompdf = new DOMPDF();
       $dompdf->loadHtml($html);
       $dompdf->setPaper($paper, $orientation);
       $dompdf->render();
       if ($stream) {
           $dompdf->stream($filename.".pdf", array("Attachment" => 0));
       } else {
           return $dompdf->output();
       }
     }
   }

5. Then in your controllers folder create Report.php and call your library $this->load->library('pdfgenerator'). To generate it call $this->pdfgenerator->generate(params). The full code you can see in this link.
6. In step number 5 the Report controller call the view table_report.php and it will generate to the report preview. The full code you can see in this link.
7. IMAGE ISSUES. Since dompdf 0.6.x, I cannot call assets like image with <?php echo base_url(); ?> (Codeigniter helper url) for load the image to report preview. So, to do that, I do <?php echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/rootproject/yourasetsfolder/blabla.jpg or png" in localhost and it works. In server just <?php echo $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/yourasetsfolder/blabla.jpg or png".

References

1. DomPDF: Image not readable or empty
2. Cetak PDF dari HTML pada Codeigniter 3.0