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Printing to PDF

Printing to PDF provides the ability to generate PDF documents with a record data. The document content is defined by Template.

Important

You need to have at least one Template for the entity type of the record you want to print.

Printing single record

Print to PDF is available on the detail view under the dropdown next to the 'Edit' button.

Printing multiple records

Print to PDF is available on the list view as a mass action. You need to select needed records and click Print to PDF from Actions menu. It will generate a single merged PDF file (or multiple PDFs zipped, depending on a used engine) for multiple records.

By default, the max number of records is limited to 50. The limit is defined by the config parameter massPrintPdfMaxCount.

Note that page numbering gets reset for each record. You need to use the placeholder {pageAbsoluteNumber} to print absolute page numbers in the footer.

Access control

Access to PDF printing is controlled by Roles. Admin can set a read access level for the Template entity type.

Engines

PDF documents are generated from HTML code. Espo supports two PDF engines:

The engine can be switched at Administration > Settings > PDF Engine.

Dompdf has better CSS support.

Templates

Table of content:

Available at Administration > PDF Templates.

For more precise editing it's recommended to use Code View mode. To switch to Code View click on the button </>.

You can print fields of the record as well as fields of related records by utilizing placeholders (Handlebars like) in your template.

Examples

  • {{name}} – Name of the record;
  • {{assignedUserName}} – Assigned User;
  • {{account.name}} – Name of the related account.

Note

If an attribute name coincides with a name of some helper, you can use the following form: {{this.attributeName}}.

You can specify a document title in the Title field (as of v7.0). {$name} placeholder is available to substitute an entity name.

Code view

A code view mode can be enabled by clicking button. It allows to edit raw HTML and make sure a layout is not messed up.

Charset issues

If some charecters are not displayed in generated PDF files, it usually can be solved by changing a font in a template. For Arabic language use 'AlArabiya' font, for Chinese – 'CID-0 cs'.

Access to templates

Administrator can add Templates tab at Administration > User Interface. An access to templates must be defined in Roles (Templates scope).

Page numbering

Placeholders are only available in footer (and header if it's set to be printed on each page).

  • {pageNumber} – the current number of the page
  • {totalPageNumber} – the total number of pages (TCPDF only)
  • {pageAbsoluteNumber} – the absolute number of the page, when printing multiple records (TCPDF only)

Page breaking

In places where you need to have an explicit page break, add:

{{pagebreak}}

Condition checking

if

{{#if value}}
    {{value}}
{{/if}}

{{#if value}}
    {{value}}
{{else}}
    No value
{{/if}}


{{#if condition1}}

{{else if condition2}}

{{else}}

{{/if}}

unless

Opposite to if.

{{#unless value}}
    No value
{{/unless}}

{{#unless value}}
    No value
{{else}}
    {{value}}
{{/unless}

ifEqual

{{#ifEqual a b}}
    a is equal b
{{else}}
    a is not equal b
{{/ifEqual}}

ifNotEqual

Opposite to ifEqual.

Each iterator

Looping through a list of items.

Example:

{{#each contacts}}
    Contact name: {{name}}
{{/each}}

Array (list):

{{#each array}}
   {{this}} – item
   {{@index}} – index
{{/each}}

Object (map):

{{#each map}}
   {{this}} – item
   {{@key}} – key
{{/each}}

Printing tables:

{{#tableTag}}
  {{#each contacts}}
      {{#trTag}}
          {{#tdTag}}{{name}}{{/tdTag}}
          {{#tdTag}}{{amount}}{{/tdTag}}
      {{/trTag}}
  {{/each}}
{{/tableTag}}

itemList is a jsonArray field (available in Quote, Sales Order, Invoices entity types).

Note: Using <tr> and <td> tags along with {{#each}} helper is not recommended, since it breaks a layout of a contenteditable element.

Displaying certain number of items in one row:

{{#each contacts}}
   {{#ifMultipleOf @key 3}}<br>{{/ifMultipleOf}}{{name}} 
{{/each}}

Access a parent scope:

{{#each contacts}}
    {{../name}}
{{/each}}

Lookup

In object (map):

{{lookup subject key}}

In array:

{{lookup teamsId index}}

Expressions

  • {{subject.key}} – lookup in objects;
  • {{array.[0]}} – lookup in arrays;
  • {{~anyTag}} – remove all previous spacing;
  • {{anyTag~}} – remove all next spacing;
  • {{{helper}}} – prevent escaping;
  • {{helper1 (helper2 arg1 arg2) arg2 arg3}} – sub-expression passed as an argument;

Images

{{imageTag imageFieldNameId width=50 height=50}}
  • imageFieldNameId is a name of image field, concatenated with Id
  • width and height can be omitted

Another way to print images for older versions. Add in code view:

<img src="{{file imageFieldNameId}}">

where imageFieldNameId – the name of an image field, concatenated with the suffix Id.

Date & time formatting

See info about date formatting.

Format Date-Time field:

{{dateFormat createdAt_RAW format='MMMM DD, YYYY' timezone='Europe/London'}}

Format Date field:

{{dateFormat closeDate_RAW format='YYYY MMMM DD'}}

Print formatted now:

{{dateFormat now_RAW format='MMMM DD, YYYY HH:mm'}}

Print formatted today:

{{dateFormat today_RAW format='MMMM DD,YYYY'}}

Specific language:

{{dateFormat createdAt_RAW format='MMMM DD' language='de_DE'}}

Number formatting

To display float numbers w/o fractional part (as integer) use the following expression: 

{{numberFormat quantity_RAW decimals=0}}

quantity is a field name.

Custom formatting for currency values: 

{{numberFormat unitPrice_RAW decimals=2 decimalPoint=',' thousandsSeparator=' '}}

Value 10000.5 will be printer as 10 000,50.

Note that _RAW part is appended to a field name.

Currency symbol

{{amountCurrencySymbol}}

where amount is a field name (of currency type).

Text field

To display text fields (multi-line) use triple braces: {{{description}}}.

Many-to-many and one-to-many.

It's possible to loop through a link collection.

The max number of records is 100. It can be changed with a config parameter htmlizerLinkLimit.

Example

Printing contact names and roles of an opportunity:

{{#each contacts}}
    Name: {{name}},
    Role: {{opportunityRole}},
    Contact's Account Type: {{account.type}}
{{/each}}

Where contacts is a relationship name. You can obtain relationship names at Administraiton > Entity Manager.

Example

Example, printing contact names of an opportunity:

{{#each contactsIds}}
    {{var this ../contactsNames}}
{{/each}}

Multi-enum & Array fields

Printing selected items:

{{#each fieldName}}
   {{./this}}
{{/each}}

Checklist field

Option 1: {{checkboxTag fieldName option='Option 1' color='blue'}}
Option 2: {{checkboxTag fieldName option='Option 2' color='blue'}}
Option 3: {{checkboxTag fieldName option='Option 3' color='blue'}}

Barcode field

{{barcodeImage barcodeField type='EAN8' width=60 height=30 fontsize=14 text=true padding=0}}

Parameters fontsize, text, padding are supported only in the TCPDF engine.

(TCPDF only)

Available types:

  • CODE128
  • CODE128A
  • CODE128B
  • CODE128C
  • EAN13
  • EAN8
  • EAN5
  • EAN2
  • UPC
  • UPCE
  • ITF14
  • pharmacode
  • QRcode

Tables

You can use a regular table tag or special tableTag helper. The latter way is preferable when using {{#each}} helper inside a table.

Example

The following example prints all account's opportunities in a table format.

In code view:

{{#tableTag width="80%" border="0.5pt" cellpadding="4"}}
{{#each opportunities}}
{{#trTag}}
  {{#tdTag width="40%"}}{{name}}{{/tdTag}}
  {{#tdTag width="30%"}}{{assignedUserName}}{{/tdTag}}
  {{#tdTag width="30%" align="right"}}{{stage}}{{/tdTag}}
{{/trTag}}
{{/each}}
{{/tableTag}}

Where trTag is a table row, tdTag is a table cell.

Raw values

To access a raw value of a specific attribute you need to add _RAW to the attribute name. The raw value is not formatted value, timezone is UTC for date-time fields.

Example

Example (applying another format to the raw value):

{{numberFormat quantity_RAW decimals=0}}

quantity is a field name.

Maps

It's possible to print Google Maps image in PDF. See here.

Custom helpers

See here.