Convert jsp to PDF using flying saucer

Question

I have a jsp file which I like to convert it to PDF using flying saucer. Here is the jsp file:

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8" isELIgnored="false"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="display" uri="http://displaytag.sf.net/el" %>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<%
String path = request.getContextPath();
String basePath = request.getScheme() + "://" + request.getServerName() + ":" + request.getServerPort() + path + "/";
%>
<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
    <title>JSP Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form name="testDBForm" action="<%=basePath%>/TestDatabase" method="post" onsubmit="return true">
        <input type="submit" id="btnInsert" value="btnInsert" name="btnInsert" text="INSERT"/>
        <input type="submit" id="btnSelect" value="btnSelect" name="btnSelect" text="SELECT"/>
        <input type="submit" id="btnDelete" value="btnDelete" name="btnDelete" text="DELETE"/>
        <input type="submit" id="btnUpdate" value="btnUpdate" name="btnUpdate" text="UPDATE"/>
  </form>
  <c:if test="${not empty message}">
      <h1>${message}</h1>
  </c:if>
  <c:if test="${not empty insert}">
      <h1>Insert: ${message}</h1>
  </c:if>
  <c:if test="${not empty select}">
      <h1>Select: ${message}</h1>
  </c:if>
  <c:if test="${not empty update}">
      <h1>Update: ${message}</h1>
  </c:if>
  <c:if test="${not empty delete}">
      <h1>Delete: ${message}</h1>
  </c:if>

</body>
  </html>

Here is the servlet code that I am using for parsing html to pdf:

protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
    response.setContentType("application/pdf");
    String inputFile = "D:\\03072014\\src\\main\\webapp\\includes\\testDatabase.jsp";
    String url="";
    try {
        url = new File(inputFile).toURI().toURL().toString();
    } catch (MalformedURLException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(HtmlToPdfTaxCardConvertor.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }
    OutputStream os=null;
    try {
        os = response.getOutputStream();
    } catch (IOException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(HtmlToPdfTaxCardConvertor.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }

    ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
    renderer.setDocument(url);
    renderer.layout();
    try {
        renderer.createPDF(os);
        os.close();
    } catch (DocumentException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(HtmlToPdfTaxCardConvertor.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }
     catch (IOException  ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(HtmlToPdfTaxCardConvertor.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }

} }

I got exception that

javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The markup in    the document preceding the root element must be well-formed.

Could somebody help me and is it possible to create pdf from this kind of html page

ug_ ug_ · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-22T17:20:20

FS takes XHTML, this means its very picky about the input of the HTML file.

Heres 2 things to try:

Put your <!DOCTYPE html> at the very top of the page.
put an end / on your meta tag.
use <c:out value="${message}" /> instead of ${message} to ensure no illegal characters are being placed in your HTML causing the parser to break.

If that fails heres a standard template I use for my FS jsp pages, the doc type declaration is optional and you can use the standard <!DOCTYPE html> but I find that a custom declaration greatly increases speed. It does however mean that you have to use decimal encoding the escape characters.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE doctypeName [
   <!ENTITY nbsp "&#160;">
   <!ENTITY amp "&#38;">
]> 
<%-- other jsp stuff here --%>
<%@include file="/WEB-INF/jsp/taglib.inc"%>
<html>
....
</html>

fork of the FS project going on danfickle

Convert jsp to PDF using flying saucer

1 Answers