wkhtmltopdf wait for condition before printing

Question

We are using wkhtmltopdf to convert dynamic html pages to pdf. We need to wait until all the ajax requests are finished.

Is there a possibility to delay the printing by a condition?

I'm guessing there isn't an option for this because it breaks down when you think about it too much. Imagine a page that continuously polls an AJAX endpoint every N seconds, something that is actually very common. Your scenario might not have this but wkhtmltopdf doesn't know that and there's no real way to flag that you have a fixed load path. — Chris Haas, May 14 '14 at 20:27
I don't want wkhtmltopdf to wait my ajax requests, I would need an option to add my wait condition, maybe a script which can tell wkhtmltopdf when to print. — Levi, May 15 '14 at 06:19

score 23 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 20 '16 at 15:07

23

You can use the --window-status option, see this post on the mailing list.

edited Oct 20 '16 at 15:07

sk8terboi87 ツ

answered May 15 '14 at 06:52

ashkulz

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 22 '18 at 03:22

If you can change the javascript code of the webpage then add this line of code to your javascript when you are certain everything is done loading:

if (your_condition_is_met_here){
    window.status = 'ready_to_print';
}

Then pass a flag --window-status ready_to_print to wkhtmltopdf. For example:

wkhtmltopdf --window-status ready_to_print map.html map.pdf

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 14 '14 at 08:54

0

You can try using the --javascript-delay option.

answered May 14 '14 at 08:54

Tim

I want to be sure that every request is finished and I don't want to delay more then needed. So --jvascript-delay is not good. – Levi May 14 '14 at 09:59

3 Answers3