header and footer in Prawn PDF

31,070

Solution 1

@GrantSayer thx for the example, but this will only let you show the current page number, not the total number of pages.

You can also use the number_pages function for the footer:

Prawn::Document.generate("page_with_numbering.pdf") do
  text "Hai"
  start_new_page
  text "bai"
  start_new_page
  text "-- Hai again"
  number_pages "<page> in a total of <total>", [bounds.right - 50, 0]
end

However, in my case I also need to format/style and right align the page numbers to match company style guides. I used go_to_page(k) to create my own header and footer functions, which add the header and footer to each page after all the pages are created. This gives me both styling options and the total number of pages:

Prawn::Document.generate("footer_example.pdf", :skip_page_creation => true) do
  10.times do
    start_new_page
    text "Some filler text for the page"
  end

  # footer
  page_count.times do |i|
    go_to_page(i+1)
    lazy_bounding_box([bounds.right-50, bounds.bottom + 25], :width => 50) {
      text "#{i+1} / #{page_count}"
    }.draw
  end
end

Solution 2

The sample you are refering to, from the prawnto plugin, is using an older version of prawn.

Since i also needed header and footer i looked a bit more into this. It seems that that version of prawn had header and footer methods, which were implemented using lazy bounding box. (found by checking the code on github)

In the new prawn version you can do the same thing using repeaters.

Here is the full sample rewritten using the new version:

require "#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/../example_helper.rb"

Prawn::Document.generate("test.pdf")  do

   repeat :all do
    # header
    bounding_box [bounds.left, bounds.top], :width  => bounds.width do
        font "Helvetica"
        text "Here's My Fancy Header", :align => :center, :size => 25
        stroke_horizontal_rule
    end

    # footer
    bounding_box [bounds.left, bounds.bottom + 25], :width  => bounds.width do
        font "Helvetica"
        stroke_horizontal_rule
        move_down(5)
        text "And here's a sexy footer", :size => 16
    end
  end

  bounding_box([bounds.left, bounds.top - 50], :width  => bounds.width, :height => bounds.height - 100) do                 
   text "this is some flowing text " * 200    

   move_down(20)

   font "#{Prawn::BASEDIR}/data/fonts/DejaVuSans.ttf"
   table [["ὕαλον ϕαγεῖν",    "baaar",             "1" ],
          ["This is","a sample",          "2" ],
          ["Table",  "dont\ncha\nknow?",  "3" ],
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules\nwith an iron fist", "x" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],   
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],  
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ],     
          [ "It",    "Rules",             "4" ]],     

     :font_size          => 24, 
     :horizontal_padding => 10,
     :vertical_padding   => 3,
     :border_width       => 2,
     :position           => :center,
     :headers            => ["Column A","Column B","#"]

  end
end

you can check the documentation page of repeat for other options which allow you to exactly specify where you want the repeaters.

Solution 3

It's little bit different with latest version of Prawn you must passe an hash

Prawn::Document.generate("page_with_numbering.pdf") do
  text "Hai"
  start_new_page
  text "bai"
  start_new_page
  text "-- Hai again"
  number_pages "<page> in a total of <total>", { :start_count_at => 0, :page_filter => :all, :at => [bounds.right - 50, 0], :align => :right, :size => 14 }
end

Solution 4

If you want a footer that do not write stuff over your text, you have to create the bounding_box below the margin of the document using bounds.bottom.

require 'prawn'

file_name = 'hello.pdf'
random_table = (0..50).map{|i|[*('a'..'z')]} # generate a 2D array for example (~2 pages)

Prawn::Document::generate(file_name) do |pdf|
    pdf.table random_table
    pdf.page_count.times do |i|
        pdf.bounding_box([pdf.bounds.left, pdf.bounds.bottom], :width => pdf.bounds.width, :height => 30) {
        # for each page, count the page number and write it
        pdf.go_to_page i+1
             pdf.move_down 5 # move below the document margin
             pdf.text "#{i+1}/#{pdf.page_count}", :align => :center # write the page number and the total page count
        }
    end
end

It should look like that, you can see that the footer is outside the margin bottom :

example result

Hope it help someone

Solution 5

START EDIT

This works in prawn >= 0.12

END EDIT

Here is my solution using repeat, canvas and cell. Essentially I'm drawing my bounding boxes at the absolute top and bottom of every page. I'm using cell to have better styling control over it. Hope this is going to be helpful to someone. ( I used slightly annoying colors to better illustrate how you can control styling of header and footer)

 Prawn::Document.generate("headers_and_footers_with_background.pdf") do
  repeat :all do
    # header
    canvas do
      bounding_box([bounds.left, bounds.top], :width => bounds.width) do
        cell :content => 'Header',
             :background_color => 'EEEEEE',
             :width => bounds.width,
             :height => 50,
             :align => :center,
             :text_color => "001B76",
             :borders => [:bottom],
             :border_width => 2,
             :border_color => '00FF00',
             :padding => 12
      end
    end
    # footer
    canvas do
      bounding_box [bounds.left, bounds.bottom + 50], :width  => bounds.width do
        cell :content => 'Footer',
             :background_color => '333333',
             :width => bounds.width,
             :height => 50,
             :align => :center,
             :text_color => "FFFFFF",
             :borders => [:top],
             :border_width => 2,
             :border_color => 'FF0000',
             :padding => 12
      end
    end
  end
  # body
  bounding_box([bounds.left, bounds.top - 25], :width  => bounds.width, :height => bounds.height - 50) do
    100.times do
      text "Some filler text for the page"
    end
  end
end
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31,070
Nik So
Author by

Nik So

Updated on July 09, 2022

Comments

  • Nik So
    Nik So almost 2 years

    I have read through all relevant posts on Prawn but found no mentioning (even in Prawn's own documentation) of headers and footers.

    However, I did see a demo on Prawnto's own website about headers and footers. I copied the entire source of that demo just to see if it works but an error of undefined method "header" is complained about. Am I to understand that Prawn took out header and footer recently in the gem or is there something else I need to do first to use header and footer?

    The demo page: http://cracklabs.com/prawnto/code/prawn_demos/source/text/flowing_text_with_header_and_footer

    the part of code of concern:

    Prawn::Document.generate("flow_with_headers_and_footers.pdf")  do
    
      header margin_box.top_left do 
          text "Here's My Fancy Header", :size => 25, :align => :center   
      end   
    
      text "hello world!"
    end
    

    And by header, just in case, I mean the snippets of words that appear usually at a corner of every page of a document. Like your account number in your bills pages.

    thanks!