Comments on: Custom Printing with Flex, Part 3: Printing Data

By: Buerkle

Buerkle — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:30:10 +0000

Thanks for info

Andrew MacArthur

By: Wally Kolcz

Wally Kolcz — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:42:45 +0000

DUmb question, but I can’t find an answer anywhere on Google. If it possible to generate the PDF with AlivePDF but rather than generate it with Flash, send ti to a FlexPrintJob directly and print the formatted PDF? Love how AlivePDF generates a PDF without server side language and allows me to dynamically place text and images, but my animal rescues would like to send the PDF directly to print (as an option). Can you send the pdf created to a UIComponent as a DisplayObject? Thanks!

By: Kalen Gibbons

Kalen Gibbons — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:08:35 +0000

I believe the AlivePDF API gives you access to images. If look at the previous article in this series you can see that when I do the printing I actually create an image first, then add it to a PDF before generating the PDF. But you’d have to dig into AlivePDF a bit to see what functionality is available to you.

By: Aaron Winters

Aaron Winters — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:33:49 +0000

Or… Is there a way to run the cfm (or php) locally on the device (ex. calling http://localhost/pdfCreator.php) from within a flex mobile app?

By: Aaron Winters

Aaron Winters — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:05:26 +0000

Kalen,
Do you know how I could turn a pdf bytearray into an image? That, or is there some wacky way to produce the response that you create in your cfm programmatically? Thanks again!

-Aaron

By: Kalen Gibbons

Kalen Gibbons — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:47:29 +0000

Hi Aaron,
Wow, you can’t save the file but you can’t call the server either, that’s a predicament. I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to accomplish but one other option would be to turn the bytearray into an image that can be displayed or transferred in some way.

By: Aaron Winters

Aaron Winters — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:33:50 +0000

Kalen,
I have a very similar problem to what Harry is having. I have the pdf in a byteArray and want to show the pdf locally without having to save the file or ping against a web service. Basically, I can’t have the data leaving the device, but I can’t save the data on the device either, just temporarily showing the data. Is this feasible? Thanks, I really appreciate your help!

-Aaron

By: Kalen Gibbons

Kalen Gibbons — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:36:16 +0000

Harry,
If you don’t have a web server to generate the PDFs in the browser why don’t you just follow the steps mentioned in the “Save locally from Flash” section of this post? That will allow users to simply open the PDF without the browser or save it on their hard drive.

By: Harry Xu

Harry Xu — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:17:59 +0000

Kalen,

Thank you for your quick reply. However, I just realize I don’t have a http service in my project. My situation is actually more flex side. I store my PDF as base64 string in the database and return this as a byte array all the way to the flex and store it as the “data” field of a mx.controls.Text control. The text control is hyperlinked, so when the user clicks on it, the evenhandler code immediately has access to the PDF’s byte array. My problem here really is how can I show this PDF in a popup window when this happens.

I used your code snipplet and did this:

private function SelectWhitePaper(event:MouseEvent):void{

var text:Text = Text(event.currentTarget);
var header:URLRequestHeader = new URLRequestHeader(“Content-type”, “application/octet-stream”);
var urlString:String = “http://kalengibbons.com/assets/pages/pdfCreator.cfm”;
urlString += “?method=inline”;

var sendRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(urlString);
sendRequest.requestHeaders.push(header);
sendRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
sendRequest.data = text.data;
navigateToURL(sendRequest, “_self”);
}

This works fine which proves that my pdf byte stream is good. However, due to the fact we don’t have an http service and won’t be easily get one (firm policy). I’m wondering if there is another way at the FLEX side that can simply shows the PDF from the already available byte array?

Thanks again,

Harry

By: Kalen Gibbons

Kalen Gibbons — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:36:06 +0000

Hi Harry,
Yes, you are correct, you should put the upload file on your domain like you mentioned. “http://myownsite.com/pdfCreator.cfm”

I have uploaded a .cfm (ColdFusion) and a .php (PHP) sample for you to try:
http://www.kalengibbons.com/assets/pages/pdfCreator.zip

Thanks,
Kalen Gibbons