Manual Page Break in TCPDF

Question

I am using TCPDF to generate the PDF in one of my projects. I simply create a HTML file and give it to the TCPDF to handle the PDF generation. But now I have some HTML where multiple certificates are added one after the other and I want to have a page break in it. Page Break should be decided by HTML i.e. I want to know if there is any identifier in HTML which TCPDF understands and then accordingly adds a page break into the generated PDF.

How could I do this?

score 92 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 31 '15 at 04:58

I'm using <br pagebreak="true"/>.

Find method writeHTML and code

if ($dom[$key]['tag'] AND isset($dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'])) {
    // check for pagebreak
    if (($dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] == 'true') OR ($dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] == 'left') OR ($dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] == 'right')) {
        // add a page (or trig AcceptPageBreak() for multicolumn mode)
        $this->checkPageBreak($this->PageBreakTrigger + 1);
    }
    if ((($dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] == 'left') AND (((!$this->rtl) AND (($this->page % 2) == 0)) OR (($this->rtl) AND (($this->page % 2) != 0))))
            OR (($dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] == 'right') AND (((!$this->rtl) AND (($this->page % 2) != 0)) OR (($this->rtl) AND (($this->page % 2) == 0))))) {
        // add a page (or trig AcceptPageBreak() for multicolumn mode)
        $this->checkPageBreak($this->PageBreakTrigger + 1);
    }
}

score 19 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 07 '09 at 06:13

You might use TCPDF's AddPage() method in combination with explode() and a suitable delimiter:

$pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8',
                 false);

// TCPDF initialization code (...)

$delimiter = '<h1>';
$html      = file_get_contents('./test.html');
$chunks    = explode($delimiter, $html);
$cnt       = count($chunks);

for ($i = 0; $i < $cnt; $i++) {
    $pdf->writeHTML($delimiter . $chunks[$i], true, 0, true, 0);

    if ($i < $cnt - 1) {
        $pdf->AddPage();
    }
}

// Reset pointer to the last page
$pdf->lastPage();

// Close and output PDF document
$pdf->Output('test.pdf', 'I');

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 30 '13 at 10:38

I tried using

<br pagebreak="true" />

or

<tcpdf method="AddPage" />

each of them resulted not in starting new page at the top of the page but adding the full A4-page empty space in between HTML text. So if text ended in the middle of the page and then page break was inserted, the new text was written from the middle of the next page. Which I didn't want.

What worked was this (found it here TCPDF forcing a new page):

$pdf->writeHTML($content, true, 0, true, 0);

$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->setPage($pdf->getPage());

This now starts with writing text on top of the page.

For the tcpdf tag to work you have to set the define ```define('K_TCPDF_CALLS_IN_HTML', true);``` — Guilherme Sampaio, Jul 20 '22 at 17:15

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 06 '10 at 11:20

10

TCPDF support the 'pagebreak' attribute for HTML tags and CSS properties 'page-break-before' and 'page-break-after'. For example you can use <br pagebreak="true" />.

Check the official http://www.tcpdf.org website and forums for further information.

answered Aug 06 '10 at 11:20

user412934

364
4
5

score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

For someone who still has the same problem with page-break TCPDF library

You can use <div style="page-break-before:always"></div> OR <br pagebreak="true"/> to break page manually in your HTML content.

Use $tcpdf->AddPage() to break page manually in your code.

When you set SetAutoPageBreak(TRUE, 10); that means: when the height of document reach to (bottom - 10) then move the cursor to new page. So if you want to have more space, just reduce the number into 0. It will draw until the end of the document without any margin from bottom.

Remember that TCPDF only accept the double quote (") for attributes of tags. Don't use single quote (') for your tag.

<div style='page-break-before:always' => WRONG

<div style="page-break-before:always" => RIGHT

It takes 8 hours from me because this issue :(

score 8 · Answer 6 · edited Dec 30 '11 at 09:32

8

With version 5.9.142 from 2011-12-23 we could use the page-break-before, page-break-inside css properties, like this:

<div style="page-break-inside:avoid;">
some non breakable text
</div>

edited Dec 30 '11 at 09:32

Jon Egerton

40,401
11
97
129

answered Dec 30 '11 at 08:35

igor.scabini

81
1
3

How can i use this thing in TCPDF version 4.6.016. Because my project is too old and i can't change version of TCPDF. So do you have any idea to use this propery "page-break-inside:avoid;" in old version "4.6.016" of TCPDF? – Bhavin Thummar Jun 27 '18 at 06:52

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 10 '16 at 10:30

4

According to http://www.tcpdf.org/examples/example_049.phps you can use something like this

$html .= '<tcpdf method="AddPage" /><h2>Graphic Functions</h2>';

You need to verify that parameter K_TCPDF_CALLS_IN_HTML in TCPDF configuration file is true.

answered Mar 10 '16 at 10:30

Salvador Orteu

41
2

This was the simplest for me to do. Just added the ```define('K_TCPDF_CALLS_IN_HTML', true);``` and it worked. – Guilherme Sampaio Jul 20 '22 at 17:14

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Dec 18 '10 at 05:02

You can also follow this method to accomplish your needs:

$htmlcontent1="CERTIFICATE NUMBER 1 IMAGE HERE";

// output the HTML content
$pdf->writeHTML($htmlcontent1, true, 0, true, 0);

// reset pointer to the last page
$pdf->lastPage();

// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
// Print a table

// add a page
$pdf->AddPage();

$htmlcontent1="CERTIFICATE NUMBER 1 IMAGE HERE";

// output the HTML content
$pdf->writeHTML($htmlcontent1, true, 0, true, 0);
// reset pointer to the last page
$pdf->lastPage();

// ---------------------------------------------------------

//Close and output PDF document
$pdf->Output('textcertificate.pdf', 'D');

Hopes it helps someone :)

Thanks

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 14 '17 at 16:33

Giving your element the page-break-after, page-break-before or page-break-inside property via CSS will apply the attribute pagebreak or pagebreakafter to the html tag during TCPDF runtime.

// page-break-inside
if (isset($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-inside']) AND ($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-inside'] == 'avoid')) {
    $dom[$key]['attribute']['nobr'] = 'true';
}
// page-break-before
if (isset($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-before'])) {
    if ($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-before'] == 'always') {
        $dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] = 'true';
    } elseif ($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-before'] == 'left') {
        $dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] = 'left';
    } elseif ($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-before'] == 'right') {
        $dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreak'] = 'right';
    }
}
// page-break-after
if (isset($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-after'])) {
    if ($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-after'] == 'always') {
        $dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreakafter'] = 'true';
    } elseif ($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-after'] == 'left') {
        $dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreakafter'] = 'left';
    } elseif ($dom[$key]['style']['page-break-after'] == 'right') {
        $dom[$key]['attribute']['pagebreakafter'] = 'right';
    }
}

Manual Page Break in TCPDF

9 Answers9

Remember that TCPDF only accept the double quote (") for attributes of tags. Don't use single quote (') for your tag.

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