I need to generate PDF files from HTML templates and plan on using wkhtmltopdf to do that. Inside the HTML templates, I need to be able to use PHP logic to adjust what the template will render. Take this HTML template for example:
<p>Dear <?php echo $firstname; ?>,</p>
<p>Thanks for signing up. You've invited these people along with you:</p>
<ul>
<?php foreach ($invitees as $invitee): ?>
<li><?php echo $invitee; ?></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
<p>Regards,</p>
<p>Chris White</p>
I have no problem being able to pass a HTML template file to wkhtmltopdf but I don't know how to get the PHP logic inside it to run correctly and be able to return the resulting template. I came across this blog post while Googling but the author uses Smarty as a template language: https://davejamesmiller.com/blog/php-html-pdf-conversion-using-wkhtmltopdf
Using Smarty would solve my problem but I don't want to bring in a library to do this when I can just use plain old PHP. Basically, I need a way to pass in variables to the HTML template (in this case $firstname and $invitees), have it execute the PHP code inside the template and then return the resulting template after the PHP has been executed.
Any ideas?
Just save your file as php (for example template.php) and implement there the logic you need.
I did the same also with wkhtmltopdf and it worked great.
I also passed some variables over GET to the template to really get the correct report as pdf.
To save the file I used the PHP session id and saved the file to a folder with write permissions for www-data (Linux) and started the download automatically via Javascript.
I had the same need and I did it like that. Don t really know if my code will help you but why not.
First I used composer to get https://github.com/mikehaertl/phpwkhtmltopdf.
lets say you have a php file " content.php "
<?php
echo "<html>";
echo "<h1>test</h1>";
echo "<html>";
?>
your index.php will be :
<?php
require "vendor/autoload.php";
ob_start();
require('content.php'); //The php file
$content = ob_get_clean();
$pdf = new \mikehaertl\wkhtmlto\Pdf($content);
if (!$pdf->send()) {
throw new Exception('OMG WHY : '.$pdf->getError());
}
If you're not using any template engine, can't u just call your template.php file with some params ?
Something like
$wkhtml2pdf->html2pdf('template.php?firstname=Foo');
(I have no idea how wkhtml2pdf works, this code is just for you to understand the logic)
and in your template.php file :
<p>Dear <?php echo $_GET['firstname']; ?>,</p>
Related
I have a Wordpress theme for a new website. I want to make some HTML adjustments but I realized that the website has only PHP scripts and of course the CSS file. For instance, I need to adjust the website name but cannot find H1 tags. I do not have any PHP knowledge. Please advice. Many thanks!
Screenshot
<?php echo "<div>html here</div>"; ?>
You can as many php chunks as you want
example :
<?php echo "<h1>html here</h2>"; ?>
<?php echo "<span>html here</span>"; ?>
Wordpress is a bit different from vanilla PHP instead of echoing out HTML with the title:
<?php echo "<h1>The Title</h1>"; ?>
It uses a function/hook called wp_title(); that you can find in header.php.
But to modify it you would have to in to functions.php and edit the function and for that you need some basic PHP knowledge.
Here is some documentation on the wp_title() function/hook.
https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/wp_title/
I have the following code that is within a file called footer.php
<section class="landing-form">
<form action="%TEMPLATE_DIRECORY_URI%/multipurpose-sliders-templates/slider11/landing-page-form.php" method="post">
<h2>%FORM_TITLE%</h2>
<p class="dsc">Enter your details below and we'll call you.</p>
I would like to include some PHP within the file, but when I add some it doesn't render. I'm not familiar with the %variable%. Is there any way to add PHP code to this type of file?
That looks like a mark up from ASP, not PHP. In order to do this in PHP do the following:
Create a new file to hold your variable. Name it var.php. In there:
<?php $formTitle = 'Whatever you want' ?>
In the HTML of your PHP page,
<? include 'var.php'; ?>
And in your HTML
<h2><? echo $formTitle ?></h2>
I must reiterate that this must be done in a PHP page on a server that is running PHP. This will not work with straight HTML. This will not work on a server that is not executing PHP.
But there you have a simple example how this is supposed to work.
So I would have a template file called template.php and inside, it would have:
<html>
some other content
<?php $name ?>
</html>
Essentially, I want to pull the name from the database and insert it into $name and save that entire page as a new file.
So let say in the database, I had a name called Joe, the new file I create would have the following content inside:
<html>
some other content
Joe
</html>
The only issue I am having is finding the right functions to actually replace the variable from the template file, and being able to save it into a new file.
That's not how templates usually work. You should have a template file, substitute variables for their values, and display it to the user. You can cache these generated templates (the ones that are always the same) but you never make a new template file for each user and save it permanently. That makes managing and updating the application way more difficult than you want.
I recommend using a simple template system like RainTPL. That's what I use for most of my projects... it's very simple to use and provides all the basic functionality you would need.
You can also use just PHP for this... there are a few answers on SO that cover this so I won't get into it.
Using PHP as template engine
Using Template on PHP
Look at the answer I gave to this question a while back. There I explain how "variable parsing" usually works.
When I create a template loader I generally use output buffering with php include. This allows you to run the page as a php file without displaying its content before you are ready. The advantage to "parsing" your php files this way is that you can still run loops and functions.
Here's an example of how to use output buffering with PHP to create what you're wanting.
The Template template.php
<html>
some other content
<?php $name ?>
</html>
Where your database code and stuff is index.php
<?php
$name = 'John Doe';
if( /* some sort of caching system */ ) {
$parsed_template = file_get_contents('parsed_template.html');
}else {
ob_start();
include 'template.php';
$parsed_template = ob_get_clean();
file_put_contents('parsed_template.html', $parsed_template);
}
echo $parsed_template;
?>
I would like to have the page on user/sidebar on the right in the template design.
Normally, I would include a php file. But I am using Kohana Framework so I have created a view and a controller for this sidebar, and exists on mysite.com/user/sidebar
Now how would i <?php include "/user/sidebar"; ?> correct? I get no such file og dir error for this. I tried full url, but allow_url_include=0
Just looking through the Kohana documentation...
It seems like you can include a "request" inside a view with the following command.
<?php echo Request::factory('user/sidebar')->execute() ?>
See this page for more info: http://kohanaframework.org/3.0/guide/kohana/mvc/views
AndrewR's comment is close. For Kohana 3.2, you'll want to load a view within a view and not a request within a view:
<?php echo View::factory('/user/sidebar'); ?>
or
<?php include Kohana::find_file('views', 'user/sidebar') ?>
Either is acceptable to do.
How can I replace the text on the active document body on a PHP file on code execution?
Do I have to import a file, replace text on it and then echo it or can I just manipulate the document I run the PHP script on?
I am trying to use templates for easier HTML editing like :usernamecomeshere: and then replacing that :usernamecomeshere: with the actual value. I am wondering If I can do it on one file only instead of loading a file and then displaying it.
If I'm getting your question correctly, you don't need to important a file and echo the document. You can directly manipulate the document itself. For example, in the below sample, you can directly echo the contents of $username in a way that's interspersed with HTML code.
index.php
<?php
// handle code to login
$username = "David";
?>
<html>
<body>
<p>Hello, your username is <?php echo $username ?></p>
</body>
</html>
Worth pointing out is that PHP itself is a templating engine. If you want to replace text, you can do it using PHP such as:
<?php
$user = 'Ugur';
?>
<html><head></head>
<body>
<h1>Hello <?php echo $user; ?></h1>
</body>
</html>
Beyond this sort of simple usage, you may want to look at various template engines, which allow you to do much more elegant things, but are more complex. Take a look at mustache, perhaps?
If you're trying to make these modifications after the page has loaded, remember that PHP runs on the server-side, not the user-side. For that, you need Javascript.
you'll want to look up str_replace() on google. You can search an entire string and replace specified keywords simply.