Create/Download an Image using Codeigniter - php

Question

Sorry to ask this issue as it puzzled me for a long time using Codeigniter.
Here is what I am doing.
As seen below, I am displaying a form where there is a button "Download".
This download button should download that image into PDF file where the details
are written on it (those in RED box).
So this is the process I am doing.
Create an Image on the fly (dynamic) using PHP function imagecreatefromjpeg.
Download/Copy that image generated in the URL and save it in a folder in the server
Generate a PDF using mpdf referencing to that image created dynamically.
I can now create an image dynamically like this one below. Where I can write a text into the image (see 2015 text written in the image)
My problem is, when I click the "Download" button, it should not display
the image in the browser but automatically download it in the folder on the server then it calls the function MPDF to convert it into PDF file. Is this possible?
Code:
This is the Method called when user clicked the "Download" button
public function download_pdf() {
$data['image'] = $this -> get_photo();
$this -> mpdf_convert_pdf();
}
This is the function that creates the image dynamically. Once created, it should download it in the specified folder location on the server.
function get_photo(){
//Create an Image on the Fly
header('Content-Type: image/jpg');
$imgpath = site_url() . 'assets/images/2316.jpg';
$img = #imagecreatefromjpeg($imgpath);
$white = imagecolorallocate($img, 0, 0, 0);
$font_path = 'assets/fonts/arial.ttf';
$text = "2015!";
imagettftext($img, 100, 0, 300, 300, $white, $font_path, $text);
imagejpeg($img);
imagedestroy($img);
//Copy an Image from URL into a server folder
$content = file_get_contents('http://localhost/run_ms/ccertificates/get_photo');
file_put_contents('C:\xampp\htdocs\run_ms\assets\images\thumb\Test.png', $content);
}
And here's is the part where it converts the image into PDF file.
public function mpdf_convert_pdf() {
include ('application/third_party/mpdf/mpdf.php');
$mpdf = new mPDF('c', 'Legal', '', '', 5, 5, 5, '5', '5', '0');
//Display output
$html = '<img src="C:\xampp\htdocs\run_ms\assets\images\thumb\Test.png">';
//display PDF file
$mpdf -> WriteHTML($html);
$mpdf -> Output('Converted_pdf', 'D');
exit ;
}
Thank you so much experts any inputs you may share into this query of mine.

Answer 1

so the point is, in every "Download" button you clicked, the pdf should open to new tab and showing the data first?

Answer 2

In order not to display the created image in the browser, you need to specify the path where it will be saved into your server. Since my issue before is how to download the created image and not to be displayed in the browser.
To do so, you need to specify the path on the fm imagejpeg
So instead of doing like this:
imagejpeg($img);
It should be done this way:
imagejpeg($img,'C:\xampp\htdocs\rn_ms\assets\images\thumb\test.png');
The second parameter is the path and filename where it will be saved in the server as stated in the PHP manual (http://php.net/manual/en/function.imagejpeg.php ). So, if the path was not specified, it will be shown in the browser but if specified, then it will be downloaded as file in the specified server path.
Hopes this will help to other developers. :)