Send PDF from server to client

help
14

@hodaraadam Alright, I figured out a solution that seems to be working really well. I have a private directory in the top level of my app with an html file called ‘case-report.html’. That file is an html page that I’m using to generate a PDF via webshot. It is styled with styles in that file. I actually just copied all the css from my main app into a style tag in the head section of that html page. I then created a route with the following code:

I guess I should also mention that I had to install "webshot": "0.16.0" via meteorhacks:npm, dfischer:phantomjs, and meteorhacks:ssr

Router.route('/cases/:_id/report/generatePDF', {
name: 'generatePDF',
where: 'server',
action: function() {
    var webshot = Meteor.npmRequire('webshot');
    var fs      = Npm.require('fs');
    var Future = Npm.require('fibers/future');
    var fut = new Future();
    var fileName = "case-report.pdf";
    var curCase = Cases.findOne(this.params._id);

    // Render the template on the server
    SSR.compileTemplate('caseReport', Assets.getText('case-report.html'));

    var html = SSR.render("caseReport", curCase);

    // Setup Webshot options
    var options = {
        "paperSize": {
            "format": "Letter",
            "orientation": "portrait",
            "margin": "1cm"
        },
        siteType: 'html'
    };



    webshot(html, fileName, options, function(err) {
        fs.readFile(fileName, function (err, data) {
            if (err) {
                return console.log(err);
            }

            fs.unlinkSync(fileName);
            fut.return(data);
        });
    });

    this.response.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'application/pdf',"Content-Disposition": "attachment; filename=generated.pdf"});
    this.response.end(fut.wait());

}
});

I then have a link on the page that I want to generate the PDF from:

<a href="{{pathFor 'generatePDF'}}" class="waves-effect waves-light btn download">Download Case</a>

Because I am doing it this way, I can actually have another route with the exact same code as the case-report.html file and show users a preview of what the PDF will look like.