pdfMake - cannot open file

Question

I used this module on Nodejs : https://github.com/bpampuch/pdfmake

Here is my code to create it :

    const fonts = {
    Roboto: {
        normal: './fonts/Roboto-Regular.ttf',
        bold: './fonts/Roboto-Medium.ttf',
        italics: './fonts/Roboto-Italic.ttf',
        bolditalics: './fonts/Roboto-Italic.ttf'
    }
};

let PdfPrinter = require('pdfmake/src/printer');
let printer = new PdfPrinter(fonts);
let fs = require('fs');


module.exports.generateFile = function (data,callback) {

    let fileName = "Logins_" + data[0]["userLogin"] + ".pdf";
    let filePath = __dirname + "/files/" + fileName;

    let logins = [ ['userLogin', 'softwarePassword', 'softwareName'] ];
    for (let obj of data) {
        let arr = [];
        for(let x in obj){
            arr.push(obj[x]);
        }
        logins.push(arr);
    }

    let docDefinition = {
        content: [
            {
                table: {
                    // headers are automatically repeated if the table spans over multiple pages
                    // you can declare how many rows should be treated as headers
                    headerRows: 1,
                    widths: [ '*', 'auto', 100, '*' ],

                    body: logins
                }
            }
        ]
    };

    try {

        let chunks = [];
        let result;

        let doc = printer.createPdfKitDocument(docDefinition);
        doc.pipe(fs.createWriteStream(filePath));
        doc.end();
        callback(null,fileName,filePath)
    } catch (err){
        callback(err);
    }
    };

I got this screen :

Any ideas guys ? In the callback, I use res.download with the filename and the filepath. I tried everything

See this : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26658535/building-table-dynamically-with-pdfmake — jy95, Feb 08 '17 at 17:11
Possible duplicate of [Building table dynamically with PDFMake](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26658535/building-table-dynamically-with-pdfmake) — jy95, Feb 08 '17 at 17:11
One of these two links answers had helped to find out the solution but I don't remember know which one it was ^^ — jy95, Jan 03 '18 at 15:13
Both are point to the same link.. Thanks i fixed my issue already. — Marcia Ong, Jan 05 '18 at 02:37

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 20 '19 at 09:51

5

Working solution tested on local and node server

Why pdfmake cannot open file is because the file stream fs is still writing to the memory block, which makes it unreadable and the downloaded PDF would be corrupted with size of 0KB.

Solution: Add an event listener to the fs.createWriteSteam and wait for fs to finish writing then send file.

var temp123;
pdfDoc.pipe(temp123 = fs.createWriteStream('./PDF/' + name), { encoding:'utf16' });

pdfDoc.end();

temp123.on('finish', async function () {
  // do send PDF file 
  res.download('name.pdf');
});

edited Oct 20 '19 at 09:51

Mike

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answered Mar 13 '18 at 15:43

Marcia Ong

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15

I tried this code and in my case `res` doesn't return a PDF back to the client. – Mike Oct 20 '19 at 14:07
@MikeB. Are you using express? The solution is for express, https://expressjs.com/en/api.html#res.download – Marcia Ong Oct 21 '19 at 16:39

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '23 at 16:24

Anyone still having this issue. Thanks to Nikhil Nanjappa's article I've used this snippet on a NextJs project where I generated pdf on the server-side. Works like a charm!

const pdfMakePrinter = require('pdfmake/src/printer');
const fs = require('fs');

function generatePdf(docDefinition, successCallback, errorCallback) => {
  try {
    const fontDescriptors = { ... };
    const printer = new pdfMakePrinter(fontDescriptors);
    const doc = printer.createPdfKitDocument(docDefinition);

    doc.pipe(
      fs.createWriteStream('docs/filename.pdf').on("error", (err) => {
        errorCallback(err.message);
      })
    );

    doc.on('end', () => {
      successCallback("PDF successfully created and stored");
    });
    
    doc.end();
    
  } catch(err) {
    throw(err);
  }
};

pdfMake - cannot open file

2 Answers2

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