TCPDF not printing table rows containing colspan? - php

Question

I am trying to print this table in TCPDF, the table is rendering fine but it is totally skipping the <tr> row with colspan , this happens to the only row that has the first <td colspan="8"> cell with a colspan.
This is the html table tha:
<table style="font-size:7px;line-height:16px;border:none;" dir="ltr" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width:17%;"></td>
<td>YTD</td>
<td>2019</td>
<td>2018</td>
<td>2017</td>
<td>2016</td>
<td>2015</td>
<td>2014</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Portfolio</td>
<td>-3.63%</td>
<td>14.51%</td>
<td>-5.11%</td>
<td>11.16%</td>
<td>8.48%</td>
<td>-2.13%</td>
<td>2.45%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Benchmark </td>
<td>-1.64%</td>
<td>9.78%</td>
<td>-3.84%</td>
<td>7.37%</td>
<td>2.92%</td>
<td>-2.66%</td>
<td>0.08%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="8">Morningstar USD Cautious Allocation</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
<p class="double-line">Annualised Return</p>
</td>
<td>
<p class="double-line">Standard Deviation</p>
</td>
<td>
<p class="double-line">Sharpe Ratio</p>
</td>
<td colspan="4"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Portfolio</td>
<td>4.45%</td>
<td>5.72%</td>
<td>0.78</td>
<td colspan="4"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Benchmark </td>
<td>2.08%</td>
<td>2.44%</td>
<td>0.85</td>
<td colspan="4"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
output on the browser page is fine (see image)
but output on the PDF removes that row completely:

Answer 1

The issue is solved, the problem was not in TCPDF, It was the table not having a proper closing tag for the row </tr> . The table above was coming from a custom field storing it in the DB of a wordpress site. Since the html is generated through a php code I had minor coding error that I forgot to close the row with </tr>. However when viewing the html content in a wordpress WYSWIG editor , it adds the self closing tags. When you debugging it on the browser page also most browsers add auto closing tags. These made me think that the html structure of the table is good and should be an issue with TCPDF. After checking the HTML in the database I finally figured out the table row wasn't closing properly.
Hopefully this will help someone having a similar issue in the future.