Hi Jonathan, I've used prince on a few projects running in production in the past couple of years and have nothing but good things to say about it. Not sure what problems you experienced when you tried prince out, but I have yet to see any problems with it.
If you can't afford the license for prince or want to stick with foss, then I'd also highly recommend wkhtmltopdf. The main reason, other than cost, to go with prince over wkhtmltopdf is that prince has greater print-related css coverage than wkhtmltopdf (or more importantly, the underlying pieces that make up wkhtmltopdf, specifically webkit) does at this time. The main reason why I chose prince over wkhtmltopdf for those specific projects was that the client required certain must-haves in terms of resulting pdf output from the underlying html/css (specifically related to css regarding preventing pdf page-breaks inside of defined html elements) that could be handled by prince but not by wkhtmltopdf. Check the latest wkhtmltopdf (or webkit) in terms of css print-related coverage as these differences are likely narrowing. Or better yet, test wkhtmltopdf out to see if it meets the needs of your project regardless. As for the cost of prince, my clients had no problem paying for the server license, especially given the cost savings they've realized over time compared to if they would have had to pay me or some other developer to dev the custom pdf generation code using one of the low- level pdg-gen'ing libs (like prawn). It's just a lot easier/cheaper to have ui devs make mods to html/css, especially in a web app context where the app provides an on-screen preview of what the pdf will (just- about) look like before the pdf is actually gen'd. I doubt I'll ever go back to using low-level pdf-gen'ing libs again. Jeff On May 13, 7:12 am, Jonathan Steel <[email protected]> wrote: > Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote: > > Jonathan Steel wrote: > >> I would like to take a rails page and convert it to a pdf. I don't want > >> to have to generate the code myself for making the pdf, so it should > >> obey css. What is the best tool for doing this? > > > Prince is supposed to be great, but it's expensive. Free alternatives > > include wkhtmltopdf, prawn_format, acts_as_flying_saucer... > > A lot of people seem to be raving about Prince, which I find odd coming > from a community like rails. It is indeed expensive. I tried it on a > complex site, and it came crashing to its knees. I have looked into > prawn and am so far impressed. I'm just scarred that it won't be able to > do a complex pdf that looks like what you would see on a web site. > > As for the others, I had planned on looking into wkhtmltopdf, and have > not heard of the other two. Thanks for your input. > > >> Does the tool use the > >> standard css, or can I provide it alternative print-css? > > > Print CSS is standard. > > I know its standard for when you are printing. But are there tools that > will pic up the print css and use that? > > > > >> Thanks in advance, > >> Jonathan Steel > > > Best, > > -- > > Marnen Laibow-Koser > >http://www.marnen.org > > [email protected] > > -- > Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
