generating pdf in rails application

Hi,

Recently for one of the requirement in my project I was supposed to create the pdf report in the rails application. I have made some research and found the "wicked_pdf" is one of the best gem available in rails.

wicked_pdf makes the life easy for pdf file generation directly from HTML page.

Wicked PDF uses the shell utility wkhtmltopdf to serve a PDF file to a user from HTML.

Wicked PDF works on Ruby 1.8.7 and 1.9.2; Rails 2 and Rails 3.

In order to use the wicked_pdf you need to install wkhtmltopdf from http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/


next add this to your Gemfile

gem 'wicked_pdf'

You can get the gem from : https://github.com/umamahesh/wicked_pdf

In your controller:

class HomeController < ApplicationController
  def get_pdf
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html
      format.pdf do
        render :pdf => "pdf_file"
      end
    end
  end
end



There are buch of options avilable to make the pdf file look and feel nicely. You can have the clear information at https://github.com/umamahesh/wicked_pdf



Use it and let me know your comments on this gem.

One more things, if you are going to deploy application in heroku then this gem will not be usefull as heroku will not provide the option to install the wkhtmltopdf :(


You may need to use prawn gem for that.



Thank You,
Uma Mahesh.