Phlex::PDF

Phlex PDF lets you compose PDF files with components in pure Ruby. It's a thin layer that sits on the shoulder of giants, Prawn, that encourages a component-first approach to building PDF documents.

Install the gem and add to the application's Gemfile by executing:

$ bundle add phlex-pdf

If bundler is not being used to manage dependencies, install the gem by executing:

$ gem install phlex-pdf

Phlex::PDF is a thin wrapper around Prawn::View, so you'll want to become familiar with PrawnPDF, particularly the PrawnPDF Manual.

require "phlex/pdf"

# Base component. You'll put methods here that are shared across all components.
class PDFComponent < Phlex::PDF
end

# Page has a `before_template` method that created a new page. Without a page
# nothing will render and an error would occur.
class PDFPage < PDFComponent
  # Creates a new page
  def before_template = create_new_page

  def after_template
    text "Page #{document.page_number}"
  end
end

# Example component inherits from PDFComponent. Note that it does NOT create any
# new pages.
class BoxComponent < PDFComponent
  def view_template
    text "I'm a box"
    yield
  end
end

# The final PDF that's rendered should be a subclass of PDFPage. Components
# can be rendered within a PDFPage.
class MyPage < PDFPage
  def initialize(title:)
    @title = title
  end

  def view_template
    text @title

    render BoxComponent.new do
      text "Look! I'm a box inside a box!"
    end
  end
end

# Render the PDF to a string.
MyPage.new(title: "This is a PDF!").to_pdf

To stream PDFs from Rails controllers, the send_pdf helper that wraps send_data and renders the PDF is available.

class MyController < ApplicationController
  include Phlex::PDF::Rails::Helpers

  def show
    send_pdf MyPage.new(title: "This is a PDF!")
  end
end

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/phlex-ruby/phlex-pdf. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Everyone interacting in the Phlex::PDF project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.