README
HTML_ToPDF
Version 3.1
http://www.rustyparts.com/pdf.php
What is HTML_ToPDF?
-------------------
HTML_ToPDF is a PHP class that makes it easy to convert HTML documents to PDF
files on the fly. HTML_ToPDF grew out of the need to convert HTML files (which
are easy to create) to PDF files (which are not so easy to create) fast and
easily. It has the following features:
* The ability to convert images in the webpage to images embedded in the PDF.
The script tries to convert relative image paths in to absolute ones as well.
* The ability to use the CSS in the HTML file in the creation of the PDF. This
includes remote CSS files as well.
* The ability to convert remote files
* The ability to convert links into embedded clickable links in the PDF file.
* The ability to scale the HTML page.
* Easy setting of any of these options through the methods of the class.
* Tries to fix quirks in html pages which break html2ps.
* PEAR error handling.
* Works on both Unix/Linux and Windows.
What is PDFEncryptor?
---------------------
PDFEncryptor is a helper class that comes with this package. It is also a
wrapper for a couple of free java libraries that allow you to digitally sign
and protect the PDFs you create by adding a password, permissions (such as
printing and copying rights), and meta-data such as the Keywords and Author.
Obtaining HTML_ToPDF
--------------------
Further information on HTML_ToPDF and the latest version can be obtained at
http://www.rustyparts.com/pdf.php
Installation
------------
There is no real installation other than requiring the file. See the
examples directory for help in how to use the class.
Included Files
--------------
The following files are available in the HTML_ToPDF distribution:
README - This file
CHANGES - The list of changes
examples/ - Several example files to aid you on your way
docs/ - Class documentation (in HTML)
lib/ - Where some of the encryption libraries live
Common Problems
---------------
* It complains of not being able to include PEAR.php.
- This is because HTML_ToPDF uses PEAR for error handling. You can
download PEAR from http://pear.php.net/ If you cannot get your hands on
PEAR you can comment out all the places where an error is raised.
* The images don't show up.
- Often the program getting the images (i.e. curl) is having a problem.
These errors can usually be seen if the program is run from the command
line.
Requirements
------------
* PHP: Version 4.0.4 or greater (http://www.php.net).
* html2ps: Does the initial conversion of html to a postscript file, and
thus is the most crucial part of the conversion. More information
about it is here: http://www.tdb.uu.se/~jan/html2ps.html You will
especially want to read the user's guide here:
http://www.tdb.uu.se/~jan/html2psug.html if this script is not making
the pdf look like you want. If running windows you will need to install
activeperl as well.
* ps2pdf: This comes with the Ghostscript package, and can be found
here: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ This package is normally
installed as an RPM on RedHat systems, so if you're using that OS you
shouldn't have to worry. There is a windows install for this as well.
* curl: Or some program that grabs documents off the web (lynx, w3m,
etc.). HOWEVER, for whatever reason only curl has worked in my tests
when the script page is running as a web script and not just a script
from the command line. Curl can be found here: http://curl.haxx.se/
* PEAR: The default installation of PEAR is needed for the error
handling and OS checking. PEAR comes with the default installation of
PHP 4 so you should normally not have to worry. Installation instructions
can be found here: http://pear.php.net/manual/en/installation.php
* Valid HTML: Good HTML (XHTML is best) definitely helps.
* PDFEncryptor needs java (http://java.sun.com) and the iText jar file
(http://itext.sourceforge.net/downloads/)
License
-------
Both HTML_ToPDF.php and PDFEncryptor are under version 2 of the PHP license.
Credits
-------
Thanks to Jack Utano (http://tnloghomes.com) for funding development of ver. 3.0