2

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);
}

} });

Community
  • 1
  • 1
Itinerati
  • 922
  • 2
  • 9
  • 19

2 Answers2

2

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.

Chip Castle
  • 2,132
  • 3
  • 20
  • 34
0

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.

gabi doroftei
  • 69
  • 4