CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phppdfadobefpdf
Unusual
Unusual

Reputation: 33

PDF created with FPDF cannot be opened by Adobe Reader

My PDF file cannot be opened with Adobe Reader. What's weird is that the PDF used to work in Adobe Reader just a few days ago and now it does not work, and of course I didn't modify the code otherwise it would be easy to fix.

I validated my PDF and learned it was a PDF/A-3, could be that it is not a PDF/A-1? If so why did it work for a time and suddenly stopped working?

EDIT

The problem was that somehow, some HTML code was output inside the PDF file, thus making the PDF file invalid for Adobe Reader, but not for Firefox, making all this much more confusing than it should be.

So a tip to anyway having trouble with PDF, open it with a text editor such as Notepad++ for Windows or GEdit for Linux, and compare with another PDF file which works fine. You should find the problem pretty quickly.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4199

Answers (2)

Michael
Michael

Reputation: 471

This was happening to me, too. It did work in Firefox for me, but not in Chrome and it wouldn't open in Adobe.

The problem was that I was trying to run the script in a function and calling the function from a button. I fixed it simply by adding the script to it's own PHP file, and then linking to the php file directly.

Note: I did try ob_start() (and alternatively ob_clean() as noted in the other answer) and ob_end_flush(), but it didn't make a difference in the function. When it's in its own file it doesn't need it anyway.

// file.php
<?php
require $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/wp-content/plugins/eri-webtools-plugin/libraries/fpdf/fpdf.php'; // <-- File path for WordPress plugin
$pdf = new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output(); // To Download, use $pdf->Output('D', 'test.pdf', true);
?>

// html
<a href="file.php">View PDF</a>

Upvotes: 0

Wellington Telles Cunha
Wellington Telles Cunha

Reputation: 373

I read a lot of questions about this and I understood that the problem is happening with:

ob_start();

Without this line, my FPDF was not working with the message explained that there was another buffer first. With this line, the PDF was readable only with Browser.

I changed this line to:

ob_clean();

and now I can open PDF with any reader.

Upvotes: 1

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