Use ABCpdf to generate pdfs of multi-paged html documents

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I maintain a library of learning modules which are constantly under development and revision. Our users often want PDFs to print out or view off-line, but we can’t maintain up-to-date PDF’s of each module manually. We needed a way to make on-demand PDFs of whatever the current state of the module is when the pdf is requested.

After looking at many pdf solutions I settled on “ABCpdf ASP 6.0” by WebSuperGoo.com.

ABCpdf has the advantages of fairly low cost (about $400.00 for one server, or FREE if you link back to them), a better HTML-rendering engine than most, and an easy to learn API, so you can write custom dynamic PDF applications.

To dynamically generate our frameset-based modules, I needed a way to send the current page-list to the ASP script that would do the interfacing with ABCpdf.

A typical module is shown below.

In the toolbar at the top of each module, there is a PDF button.

Picture%2017.jpg

Clicking the button submits a form with fields containing a list of all the pages in the module, and the path to the module. ABCpdf uses this information to generate an image for every page. It does a very good job of rendering the HTML, complete with all the styles.

The HTML for the form containing the PDF button is shown below. The form field containing the list of pages is populated by a javascript that runs when the page loads so that it always contains the most current list, since the list can change while the module is being read depending on user interactions.

<form id="pdfForm" action="http://myserver.com/abcpdf.asp" method="post" target="_blank" name="pdfForm">

<a id="headerPDF" title="Create a printable PDF of this entire module. (takes time, please wait)" onclick="document.pdfForm.submit();" href="#">

<img id="pdfBtn" width="46" height="44" border="0" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('pdfBtn','','images/header/over/pdf_btn.jpg',1)" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" name="pdfBtn" alt="Download a Printable PDF of this module" src="http://thedesignspace.net/master/template/images/header/up/pdf_btn.jpg"/>

</a>

<input type="hidden" value="http://myserver.com/learningmodule/page01.htm" name="uPath"/>

<input type="hidden" value="page01.htm;page02.htm;page03.htm;page04.htm;page05.htm;page06.htm;page07.htm;page08.htm;page09.htm;page10.htm;page11.htm;page12.htm;page13.htm;page14.htm;page15.htm;page16.htm;page17.htm;page18.htm;page19.htm;page20.htm;page21.htm;scorePage.htm;" name="uUrl"/>

</form>

The code for the receiving page “abcpdf.asp” is shown below. 

<% @Language="VBScript" %>
  <% Option Explicit
  Server.ScriptTimeout =500
  %>
  <html>
  <body>


<%
  'function to randomize a number
  Function RandomNumber(intHighestNumber)
  Randomize
  RandomNumber = Int(Rnd * intHighestNumber) + 1
  End Function



Dim theDoc, i, theID, theData
  Dim theURLs() 
  Dim inti
  Dim x, w, h, l, b
  Dim strPath
  Dim strValue
  dim intFind
  dim id
  
  Set theDoc = Server.CreateObject("ABCpdf6.Doc")
  theDoc.HtmlOptions.BrowserWidth = 1300
  
  ' apply a rotation transform
  w = theDoc.MediaBox.Width
  h = theDoc.MediaBox.Height
  l = theDoc.MediaBox.Left
  b = theDoc.MediaBox.Bottom 
  theDoc.Transform.Rotate 90, l, b
  theDoc.Transform.Translate w, 0


' rotate our rectangle
  theDoc.Rect.Width = h
  theDoc.Rect.Height = w 


inti=0
  i=1
  'loop thru' the form elements and assign the url to the array elements and increment array each time
  for each x in request.form
  'look for the field with the url in it concatenated
  if left(x, 4) = "uUrl" then
  strValue=request.form(x)
  intfind = instr(strValue,";") 'each url is separated by a ; look for that
  while intfind>0 'parse each item in the url
  redim preserve theURLs(i+1)'save the array
  theURLs(i) = strPath & left(strValue,intfind-1) & "?lll=" & RandomNumber(10)
  strValue=right(strValue,len(strValue)-intfind) 'new string is old string cut off
  intfind = instr(strValue,";")
  i=i+1 'increment array index
  wend
  elseif x="uPath" then
  strPath=request.form(x)
  intFind = instrrev(strPath,"/") 'look backwords..from end of string
  strPath=left(strpath,intFind)
  end if
  next



 


For i = (LBound(theURLs)+1) To (UBound(theURLs)-1)
      theDoc.Page = theDoc.AddPage()
       id = theDoc.AddImageUrl(theURLs(i))
  Do While theDoc.Chainable(id)
       theDoc.Page = theDoc.AddPage()
  
       id = theDoc.AddImageToChain(id)

     Loop
  Next
  
      theID = theDoc.GetInfo(theDoc.Root, "Pages")
      theDoc.SetInfo theID, "/Rotate", "90"


For i = 1 To theDoc.PageCount
           theDoc.PageNumber = i
           theDoc.Flatten
      Next


theData = theDoc.GetData()
       Response.Clear
       Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
       Response.AddHeader "content-length", UBound(theData) - LBound(theData) + 1
  Response.AddHeader "content-disposition", "attachment; filename=MLearning.PDF"
  Response.BinaryWrite theData
  theDoc.Clear
  %>


</body>
  </html>

The resulting PDF of the module looks like this.

We chose to have ABCpdf render the HTML pages into landscape orientation (11″ wide), since webpages can be a little wider than 8-1/2 x 11, and we got better results from this size.