PDF export

How to make pdf with Wappler ?

I think at the moment you cannot do it with Wappler.
Not easy doing also with thirdy party…

ok, I will use FPDF

There is a feature request here .

How to make PDF? I mean there is a missing part from your question. I mean from what to what? Convert smth to PDF? Or like pur results to a PDF? Anyway I would go for an API 3. Party, as PDF will become very complex. Anyway I think PDF is useless in some years and I would be happy to see that finally. Like Flash or Java JRE

I thought there was a wappler extension to generate the pdf, but they replied that it is a future request

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Obsolete feature request in some months… :laughing::ok_hand:t5: But thats my opinion

Still important to me @Freddy_Blockchain

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why do you say that? There is something new ?

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No its just that for me PDF is still smth which gives no real benefit. Maybe People use PDF, cause it „JUST LOOKS EVERYWHERE“
the same… :smile:

+1 for PDF - but this is only a hobby for me so it may not be what the power users want or need.

Personally, I do not see PDF going anywhere too soon.

In the printing and publishing industry it is an absolute essential format, the client used to supply an open Freehand, Illustrator, or InDesign document and when opened at the printers there would generally be all kinds of problems, picture links missing, modified, font reflows because my version of the 110 odd versions of the same “Helvetica” font was ever so slightly different. The kerning, or leading, or the ligature set was ever so slightly different, causing a reflow on page 92 of a large magazine. Before PDF it was an absolute nightmare in the printing industry.

In the web world, I think there are similar issues, what document format should people use, If I added a QuarkXPress file to my website, there would only be a handful of people that could open it, even a user that might own the application might be a major version behind the version i created it in, and it would not open.
Lets say I used a more common format such as docx, there are differences between Word for Mac and Word for PC, again the fonts come into play, some fonts have only been made for the PC platform, while others are only made for Mac, If I do not use the exact same font, my opened document could look vastly different to what was intended.

PDF answered all these issues by allowing font embedding, as well as font subset embedding to try make the document ever so slightly smaller in file size.
In printing I used to sometimes be provided a document that with all images, fonts, etc. would be a filesize of 4gb, which in the day would have been impossible to email to the printer. The same document converted to PDF would come down to less than 10mb, obviously content dependent, but at least it saved an entire step of loading it onto 10 bernouli disks, haha.

PDF for the web also allows for forms to be completed online, safely, with security, and I have used this quite extensively for legal documents where the form has to be customised to each user case, with their name etc. added to it. I made a master PDF, and through FPDF was able to edit the PDF before the user downloaded it so it would reflect all their details correctly, they could complete the last few inputs, then submit it directly from the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. That being said the free reader is available on almost every single platform available too.

So @Freddy_Blockchain, out of interest what document format do you think might be able to take over and be better suited to all these tasks? Really just wondering, I mean don’t get me wrong, PDF is by no means perfect, and has it’s limitations, but what other options are there that can even attempt to compare.

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Also I am using FPDF. It works very well !
I create a PHP page with a database query. The data is passed to FPDF and the work is done.

I absolutely agree with @psweb!

Obviously, as for any kind of problem, you must understand for what you need what.
PDF has limitation, as Paul said, but for exchanging of printable documents is still the leading format.

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I also agree. I think Wappler has enormous potential for websites and also web-based applications - eg being used in situations where printing and/or storing documents (invoices, orders etc.) is critical.

If this could be integrated into Wappler to make it easy to produce such documents, it would be a very useful feature (and a good selling point I would have thought). I’m sure we all receive quite a few orders and invoices following online purchases - some look very professional; typically they look very poor, with layout and formatting people only accepted because it’s an online purchase.

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I fully agree with this that you say

To use with Wappler’s API functionality:

https://pdflayer.com

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Well there you go! There is an API service for everything these days!

API driven websites and apps are becoming the standard and common practice.

Looks a great idea but is not a cheap solution for a busy website

it would be really helpful to have a bunch of documented API Howto. I know every API is different. But thats not the point. People learn very fast with 2-3 different examples. After that they can understand how all the other API works.

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