CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javapdfspring-bootpdfbox
hasti123
hasti123

Reputation: 118

Create PDF and return it in ResponseEntity

I'm trying to create a PDF and then download it automatically. I'm using PDFBox to create the PDF and it saves locally just fine but as soon as I return it via ResponseEntity or byte[] it becomes blank. I want to use a post because I want to send a body of parameters that I need for the PDF.

Here's my controller

    @PostMapping(value="/documents/generate")
    ResponseEntity<?> generateSampleTag(@RequestBody SampleTag sampleTag) {
        log.info("inside generatePdfFromHtml method in DocumentController");
        try(ByteArrayOutputStream byteArrayOutputStream = freePdfService.generatePdf(sampleTag)) {
            HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
            headers.add(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, MediaType.APPLICATION_PDF_VALUE);
            headers.add(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment; filename=sampleTag.pdf");
            headers.add("Expires", "0");
            headers.setCacheControl(CacheControl.noCache());
            headers.add("Pragma", "public");
            ByteArrayResource resource = new ByteArrayResource(byteArrayOutputStream.toByteArray());
            return new ResponseEntity<>(resource, headers, HttpStatus.OK);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            log.error(e.getMessage());
            return new ResponseEntity<>(e.getMessage(), HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);
        }

    }

I've been trying a variety of input/output streams and header values and I'm just guessing at this point. Thanks for the help!

I answered below but my issue was Swagger couldn't download it correctly. Postman worked.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 4749

Answers (2)

hasti123
hasti123

Reputation: 118

My issue was that Swagger couldn't download my PDF correctly. I tried it in Postman and it worked...

Upvotes: 2

Owen Newburn
Owen Newburn

Reputation: 21

I have not used PDFBox but it has worked for me before to send an inputStream as a response with a PDF mime type header.

Something like...

ByteArrayOutputStream byteArrayOutputStream = freePdfService.generatePdf(sampleTag)
headers.setContentType(MediaType.parseMediaType(MediaType.APPLICATION_PDF_VALUE));
return new ResponseEntity<>(new InputStreamResource(byteArrayOutputStream), headers, HttpStatus.OK);

Upvotes: 2

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