• View
• Edit
• History
• Attach
• Print
• Backlinks

PrintGroup

Questions answered by this recipe

1. I have a wiki containing critically important information that I may need at any time within 5 minutes. Even if there is a nightly backup system in place, in case of a server failure, I must be able to access the information without having to first re-install the operating system, the server and the wiki.
2. How can I easily export all pages from a WikiGroup to a single large HTML page, and/or to a PDF file?
3. How can I create PDF snapshots of specific groups in my wiki, manually or automatically?

Description

Export a whole group to HTML or to PDF.

This recipe shares goals with BackupHTMLZip (Export your wiki to static HTML then optionally compress/zip it) but instead of a static HTML export it creates one HTML file per WikiGroup then optionally converts it to PDF. Attached files are not included in the HTML export but accessible from the running wiki. Embedded pictures are included in the PDF export.

Pages in the exported group are converted to sections and ordered alphabetically (after HomePage and SideBar on top), and in-group links between them work both in the HTML export and in the PDF file. Links to pages in other WikiGroups, to attached files, or to external sites open in the browser.

The recipe also allows to export to PDF a single page, and can provide a dynamic URL list with groups to be exported.

Installation

1. Place printgroup.phpΔ in your pmwiki/cookbook directory.
2. Add to config.php such a snippet:

   if($action=='printgroup' || $action=='pdfgroup' || $action=='pdfpage' || $action=='groupurls') {
     include_once("$FarmD/cookbook/printgroup.php");
   }
3. Download stable version of WkHTMLToPDF for your system and place it where PrintGroup can find it.
   • On GNU/Linux, the distribution repositories usually contain either an old version, or a beta version; the stable binary from the official website may work better. Place the bin/wkhtmltopdf file and the lib/ files somewhere within your $PATH, or in any directory close to the wiki, eg pmwiki/utilities. In the latter case, you'll need to configure the $PrintGroup['pdfbinary'] variable.
   • On Windows, you can extract all files from the bin and lib directories to a directory close to the wiki, eg pmwiki/utilities. Then you'll need to configure the $PrintGroup['pdfbinary'] variable, see below.

Configuration

The following variables can be configured before the include_once line:

Automatic nightly export to PDF

The main reason for writing this recipe is to have access to a critically important wiki content in case of a server crash, same as BackupHTMLZip. The other features are happy side effects.

The goal is to configure the task scheduler and let it manage the nightly exports automatically without any action from the user or admin. In this case, the configuration could look like this:

$PrintGroup = array(
  'pdfbinary' => "C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\pmwiki\\util\\wkhtmltopdf\\bin\\wkhtmltopdf.exe",
  'outpdf' => false,
  'adminperms' => true,
  'dir' => 'MyWiki-backup/MYWIKI_PDF',
  'keeplatest' => 1,
);

This Windows server also needs to install WGET binaries.

And the batch program launched by the task scheduler looks like this:

@echo off
rem   This tool is launched by the Task Scheduler every night
rem   Note, the exports are in the directory
rem     C:\xampp\htdocs\pmwiki\MyWiki-backup
rem   Written by Petko Yotov pmwiki.org/petko

cd C:\xampp\htdocs\pmwiki\util

rem   Get the list of groups
C:\xampp\htdocs\pmwiki\util\wget\wget.exe -O grouplist.txt -q http://192.168.111.3/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?action=groupurls

rem   Start the PDF exports
C:\xampp\htdocs\pmwiki\util\wget\wget.exe -O trash.txt -q -i grouplist.txt

rem   Launch a static HTML export to ZIP
rem C:\xampp\htdocs\pmwiki\util\wget\wget.exe -O trash.txt -q http://192.168.111.3/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?action=bhzip

The last line launches a BackupHTMLZip export, remove the "rem" at the start to enable it.

Internationalization

The following strings can be translated in an XLPage:

  # link to top of page
  "top" => "",
  # link to Table of Contents (SideBar)
  "toc" => "",

  # Footer of each page: "Last modified by NAME on DATE"
  "Last modified by" => "",
  "on" => "",
  "Original URL" => "",

Usage

In your browser, open a page with the action printgroup or pdfgroup or pdfpage, for example [[Main.WikiSandbox?action=pdfgroup]].

This will create a large HTML page with the content of all pages in the Main group, covert it into PDF and send it to the browser for download. The PDF will stay stored in the $PrintGroup['dir'] directory.

The action printgroup will create a HTML export for all pages in the current group; pdfgroup will create a PDF file with all pages in the group; pdfpage will create a PDF from the current single page. The exports will use the templates defined in $PrintGroup['GroupTemplate'], $PrintGroup['PageTemplate'], and $PrintGroup['customcss'].

If the variable $PrintGroup['outpdf'] is true then the PDF export will be sent to the browser, otherwise it will only be stored on the server and the browser will display a redirect link to the current wiki page.

Notes

Change log / Release notes

• 20210822 Update for PHP 8. Clear unneeded output before the actual PDF that could break on-the-fly generation. Add $PrintGroup['datefmt'].
• 20170711 first public release after about 2 months of usage on an intranet server.

See also

Contributors

Recipe written and maintained by Petko.

Comments

See discussion at PrintGroup-Talk?