Rails wicked_pdf (wkhtmltopdf) small images and bugs in production environment

Question

For some reason my Rails app that uses wicked_pdf gem to generates PDF files (a gem that uses the software wkhtmltopdf) is generating different PDF in development and production.

This is how it outputs in development, is almost fine: Click here to view.
This is how outputs in production, with a lot of errors: Click here to view.

The real difference in the system is that in development I use the wkhtmltopdf 0.9.9 in OSX. In production I use wkhtmltopdf 0.9.9 in Ubuntu. Once the Ubuntu Server 14.04 don't use X Server (and the wkhtmltopdf need it) I installed the Xorg and make the follow wrapper:

/usr/bin/wkhtmltopdf.sh

xvfb-run -a -s "-screen 0 1024x768x32" wkhtmltopdf "$@"

And the follow code in Rails initializers:

/config/initializers/wicked_pdf.rb

if Rails.env.production?
  WickedPdf.config = {
    :exe_path => '/usr/bin/wkhtmltopdf.sh'
  }
else
  WickedPdf.config = {
    :exe_path => '/usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf'
  }
end

And that's the controller code that I render the PDF:

render :pdf => "curriculum",
        :template => 'kurrics/kurrics.pdf.erb',
        :margin => { :top => 4, :bottom => 4, :left => 0, :right => 0 },
        :encoding => "utf8",
        :print_media_type => true

And if its needed, the PDF template layout:
https://gist.github.com/fschuindt/e173c05d0cc7378df105

I am pretty lost, any tip?

line 13 should have a fully-qualified path including domain, but would be better with a full filesystem path. Maybe you can pull it into your app? Same with Line 34, Can you drop that in your app, and save the server from having to make a remote HTTP call to download it every time (it might be timing out). — Unixmonkey
Same wkhtmltopdf version? Sometimes the versions are different in different repos. — Joel Peltonen

Charith H Charith H · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-30T04:24:43

Your problem might have already been solved. But this answer will helpful for other.

As your pdf samples, the problems are with external css and background image. I had the same problem and, I added internal css line as below in pdf template. (Please see this issue)

background-image: url('file://<%= Rails.root.join('app/assets/images/colorful-triangles.jpg') %>');

This method works in both development and production environments.

It is a best practice to use separate css files for pdf. This will speedup your pdf generation and it reduces the server cost. And, avoid loading unwanted css files and images to pdf layout.

Rails wicked_pdf (wkhtmltopdf) small images and bugs in production environment

1 Answers