FPDF error: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF

Question

I am using the fpdf library for my project, and I'm using this to extend one of the drupal module. These lines

$pdf = new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output();

give me an error: FPDF error: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF

I tried creating this in a separate file outside the drupal area name test.php and when viewed it worked. Anyone here know why this don't work? Or anyone here can point me a right pdf library which I can use in drupal to view HTML to PDF format.

Gordon Bailey · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-28T04:00:39.933

55

For fpdf to work properly, there cannot be any output at all beside what fpdf generates. For example, this will work:

<?php
$pdf = new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output();
?>

While this will not (note the leading space before the opening <? tag)

 <?php
$pdf = new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output();
?>

Also, this will not work either (the echo will break it):

<?php
echo "About to create pdf";
$pdf = new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output();
?>

I'm not sure about the drupal side of things, but I know that absolutely zero non-fpdf output is a requirement for fpdf to work.

edited Feb 28 '12 at 04:00

answered Feb 28 '12 at 02:59

Gordon Bailey

3,881
20
28

1

oww ok, because i just inserted the code inside .tpl files. It has blocks of codes that uses echo/print, or html tags and javascript syntax. – Wondering Coder Feb 28 '12 at 03:52
btw - i don't use short tags in php. used this – Wondering Coder Feb 28 '12 at 03:53
2

Yep. that's your problem. Using `echo` will also break fpdf (I'll edit my answer to show that). The short tags vs. long tags shouldn't make a difference, but you'll have to make sure that there is not even a single character outside of your php tags. – Gordon Bailey Feb 28 '12 at 03:59
@GordonBailey What would be approach in using fpdf in PHP MVC frameworks, for instance in phalconphp, but conceptual answer for MVC is very welcome – eomeroff Nov 25 '13 at 23:45
REMOVE the closing "?>" at the end of each PHP file, particularly any PHP file that might be "included" in the code. The very existence of the "?>" means there might be a "\r\n" EOL afterwards, depending on your editor, and that "\r\n" will be sent in the output Response and contaminate your PDF. – UncaAlby Nov 10 '16 at 23:18
Thank you @gordeon i have same problem is happened in mpdf but localhost give pdf output but server give not output then i remove the white space before the " – Bhavin Thummar Jun 23 '17 at 12:10
`echo` was a problem in my case! Thank you – Zaheer May 31 '19 at 23:45

score 41 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 18 '15 at 07:35

41

add ob_start (); at the top and at the end add ob_end_flush();

<?php
    ob_start();
    require('fpdf.php');
    $pdf = new FPDF();
    $pdf->AddPage();
    $pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
    $pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
    $pdf->Output();
    ob_end_flush(); 
?>

edited Jun 18 '15 at 07:35

bummi

27,123
14
62
101

answered Jun 18 '15 at 06:28

Behlum Noman

421
4
5

1

This is the answer which solved my problem great work – Humphrey Apr 18 '16 at 06:17
1

This is the solution of error FPDF error: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF. – Ravi Shrimali Jan 13 '18 at 06:34

score 25 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 19 '12 at 10:56

25

give me an error as below:
FPDF error: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF

to over come this error: go to fpdf.php in that,goto line number 996

function Output($name='', $dest='')

after that make changes like this:

function Output($name='', $dest='') {   
    ob_clean();     //Output PDF to so

edited Oct 19 '12 at 10:56

Prasad Jadhav

5,090
16
62
80

answered Oct 19 '12 at 10:46

raghavendra

259
3
2

I up-checked this answer because it works, particularly in cases where you have spaces or newlines outside of your tags, and can not find them all. It might be safer to call "ob_clean" from the calling function, instead of inside the "Output" function. Be warned, that it will also hide any legitimate error messages that might actually be causing the problem. If you fix the errors, which you ought to do anyway, that might solve your problem without resorting to "hacks" like this. – UncaAlby Oct 25 '16 at 21:46
I used that but it shows me - Notice: ob_clean(): failed to delete buffer. No buffer to delete in /var/www/html/-------/fpdf.php on line 981 – Wasim Khan Aug 04 '17 at 13:52
This is working perfeclty for me. upvote from my side. – Naren Verma Nov 06 '17 at 08:48
I picked up the error noted by the OP after moving files to a new server. No changes, just updating from Windows Server 2012 to 2016. Adding ob_clean(); solved the problem. – Burndog Jan 02 '18 at 18:24
Worked flawlessly for me. I was having this issue when trying to compare two strings. – Keno May 07 '18 at 04:06
I'm using this library: https://github.com/myokyawhtun/PDFMerger and this worked for me. Instead, I modified `/tcpdf/tcpdf.php` – mike Mar 26 '19 at 17:27

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 03 '12 at 21:04

5

Try to save the file without the option: "BOM comment", i.e. in Adobe Dreamweaver, you Save File As..., uncheck the box below the filename that says, "Include Unicode signature(BOM)".

On Notepad++ you should select the menu: Encoding, "Encode in UTF-8 without BOM".

And make it default for other files you create, it will spare you a lot of headaches in future.

edited Oct 03 '12 at 21:04

Sebass van Boxel

2,514
1
22
37

answered Oct 03 '12 at 17:58

Andrey Aires

51
1
1

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 05 '12 at 01:30

Hi do you have a session header on the top of your page. or any includes If you have then try to add this codes on top pf your page it should works fine.

<?

while (ob_get_level())
ob_end_clean();
header("Content-Encoding: None", true);

?>

cheers :-)

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 02 '15 at 13:20

In my case i had set:

ini_set('display_errors', 'on');
error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);

When i made the request to generate the report, some warnings were displayed in the browser (like the usage of deprecated functions).
Turning off the display_errors option, the report was generated successfully.

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 22 '12 at 04:42

The FPDF Error Message will point you to the PHP Line that is sending some content.

If you get no hint what File & Line send some content you probably have an encoding mismatch in your include / require Files.

For me

fpdf.php was ANSI-encoded,
my pdf-generator.php was UTF-8-encoded and
my database-connect-inlude was UTF-8-encoded (this UTF-8-encoding did raise the FPDF error. I had to switch it back to ANSI)

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 18 '16 at 14:02

2

if you're code outputs notices/warnings before the PDF generation, try turning them off. error_reporting(0). Then work on the warnings there-after

answered Apr 18 '16 at 14:02

Cliff Ombachi

39
4

4

This should be posted as a comment. – Marko Popovic Apr 18 '16 at 14:07

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Dec 09 '19 at 05:42

2

Add to the beginning of the script

ob_start();
require ('fpdf.php');

and at the end, after output()

ob_end_flush();

It worked for me! =)

answered Dec 09 '19 at 05:42

JavierMD

61
5

this error showing today. its working from last 3 year and today not work – Rajesh May 20 '20 at 04:57
This made the trick, but ensure you don't have divs or other html stuff (even blank spaces), otherwise will silently fail. – m3nda Aug 16 '21 at 20:09

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 02 '20 at 10:35

2

Even a single space in the included php files causes that warning. There shouldn't be any output in any way.

answered Aug 02 '20 at 10:35

mguven guven

91
1
5

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Mar 08 '16 at 14:07

1

First step check the permissions on the folders second step put this

ob_start();

before the line

$pdf->Output();

answered Mar 08 '16 at 14:07

Santos L. Victor

628
8
13

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 04 '17 at 14:25

1

I used the following and it worked for me

require_once ('pdf/fpdf.php');

$pdf = new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'Hello World!');
$pdf->Output(F,'/var/www/html/PATH/filename.pdf');
ob_end_flush();

answered Aug 04 '17 at 14:25

Wasim Khan

1,177
12
13

score 0 · Answer 13 · edited Mar 11 '15 at 18:18

0

You need to call the library

require ('fpdf.php');

<?php
require('fpdf.php');

$pdf = new FPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetFont('Arial','B',16);
$pdf->Cell(40,10,'¡Hola, Mundo!');
$pdf->Output();
?>

http://www.fpdf.org/

http://www.fpdf.org/es/tutorial/tuto1.htm

edited Mar 11 '15 at 18:18

dario

5,149
12
28
32

answered Mar 11 '15 at 17:59

Proyecto Pi

1

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered May 20 '20 at 04:56

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'FPDF error: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF file (output started at /home/asri123/public_html/bill/invoice/invoice.php:743)' in /home/asri123/public_html/bill/invoice/fpdf.php:271 Stack trace: #0 /home/asri123/public_html/bill/invoice/fpdf.php(1052): FPDF->Error('Some data has a...') #1 /home/asri123/public_html/bill/invoice/fpdf.php(1012): FPDF->_checkoutput() #2 /home/asri123/public_html/bill/invoice/mirasbill.php(262): FPDF->Output('MSFS/2018-19/76...', 'D') #3 {main} thrown in /home/asri123/public_html/bill/invoice/fpdf.php on line 271

its working from last 3 year but today its stop on all sites please help me — Rajesh, May 20 '20 at 04:58

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Nov 05 '20 at 18:41

Another answer that nobody else has posted here... Double-check the encoding of your PHP file and make sure that it's not something other than UTF-8. The wrong code editor (or FTP upload?) can mess with the file's encoding in which case none of the other fixes mentioned in this thread will help.

FPDF error: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF

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