CODEWITHSUNDEEP
meteorwkhtmltopdfiron-router
Itinerati
Itinerati

Reputation: 932

wkhtmltopdf and Meteor returning a blank pdf

I'm generating a few html-based reports from my Meteor app. Everything works beautifully on my development machine, but when I push it up to the server, the pdf files that are returned are empty.

I've installed wkhtmltopdf 0.11 using the instructions in this post. I've also tried 0.9.9. When I go to print, I don't get any errors: just a pdf file without any content.

Any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong would be appreciated!

Here's the code I'm using to generate the pdf:

Router.route('/reports/printHTML/:fileID?', {
   name: 'reports.printHTML',
   where: 'server',
   action: function(){

var headers = {
  'Content-type': 'application/pdf',
  'Content-Disposition': "attachment; filename=space_report_" + this.params.fileID + ".pdf"
};
this.response.writeHead(200, headers);

var wk = Meteor.npmRequire('wkhtmltopdf');

var thisReport = PastReports.findOne({_id: this.params.fileID});

if(thisReport){
  var html = thisReport.body + '<head><link rel="stylesheet" href="' + Meteor.absoluteUrl() + '/bootstrap.css"><link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.2/css/bootstrap-theme.min.css"><link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/fullcalendar/2.2.6/fullcalendar.min.css"></head>';
  var r = wk(html, {pageSize:'letter', orientation:'Landscape', zoom:1, B:"5mm", L:"5mm", R:"5mm", T:"5mm",}).pipe(this.response);
} else {
  console.log("No report to print: " + this.params.fileID);
}

} });

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1641

Answers (2)

gabi doroftei
gabi doroftei

Reputation: 79

I had a similar issue with PhantomJS. The bundle included my OSX binary of phantomjs instead of Ubuntu version. As Chip suggested, try to change the path accordingly to your OS distribuction.

Upvotes: 0

Chip Castle
Chip Castle

Reputation: 2192

The user running your meteor app should have wkhtmltopdf in its PATH, so you might want to try the following:

  • Login as the user running your meteor app and verify the PATH where wkhtmltopdf is located with either which wkhtmltopdf or whereis wkhtmltopdf

  • Login as the user running your meteor app and verify your PATH with echo $PATH

  • Set your PATH to contain the same path that is used by wkhtmltopdf

    # inside ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile

    export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"

  • Alternatively, you can create a symbolic link to wkhtmltopdf to an existing directory in your PATH. If wkhtmltopdf is installed under /usr/local/bin and you already have /usr/bin in your PATH:

    ln -s /usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf /usr/bin/wkhtmltopdf

Also, be sure to check the browser's console or server logs for errors.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions