Making PDF Tables

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Monks!
I need to create a PDF document with a few tables in it, from the code sample of the module PDF::Table its simple to have one table in the same page of a PDF, but I can’t figure it out how I would add another table into the same PDF page. Has any of you tried or had to do the same thing using the same module?
Code Sample

 use PDF::API2;
 use PDF::Table;
 
 my $pdftable = new PDF::Table;
 my $pdf = new PDF::API2(-file => "table_of_lorem.pdf");
 my $page = $pdf->page;
 
 # some data to layout
 my $some_data =[
    ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor",
    "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel",
    "consequat quis, tincidunt vel, felis."],
    ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.",
    "Donec odio neque",
    "Sed eu velit."],
    #... and so on
 ];
 
 $left_edge_of_table = 50;
 # build the table layout
 $pdftable->table(
     # required params
     $pdf,
     $page,
     $some_data,
     x => $left_edge_of_table,
     w => 495,
     start_y => 750,
     next_y  => 700,
     start_h => 300,
     next_h  => 500,
     # some optional params
     padding => 5,
     padding_right => 10,
     background_color_odd  => "gray",
     background_color_even => "lightblue", #cell background color for 
+even rows
  );
# second table in the same PDF page
 $pdftable->table(
     # required params
     $pdf,
     $page,
     $some_data,
     x => $left_edge_of_table,
     w => 500,
     start_y => 755,
     next_y  => 705,
     start_h => 305,
     next_h  => 505,
     # some optional params
     padding => 5,
     padding_right => 10,
     background_color_odd  => "navy",
     background_color_even => "red", #cell background color for even r
+ows
  );
  
 # do other stuff with $pdf
 $pdf->saveas();
[download]

Thanks for looking!

Comment on Making PDF Tables Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Making PDF Tables by Loops (Curate) on Oct 24, 2014 at 20:41 UTC
It's quite ugly but PDF::Table is actually consuming the contents of $some_data by shifting each element out of it for display. This means that when you call table the second time you're passing in an empty data set which causes a divide by zero error. You'll have to make a copy of the data before passing it in. As an aside, you'll want to record the third parameter returned from the first table call. This is the last y value used in creating the table. Subtract a few from what you get back (origin is the bottom of the page, not the top) and use it as the starting position of the second table. use PDF::API2; use PDF::Table; my $pdftable = new PDF::Table; my $pdf = new PDF::API2(-file => "table_of_lorem.pdf"); my $page = $pdf->page; my $some_data = [ ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ]; my $left_edge_of_table = 50; my @tmp = @$some_data; my (undef, undef, $boty) = $pdftable->table( $pdf, $page, \@tmp, x => $left_edge_of_table, w => 495, start_y => 750, next_y => 700, start_h => 300, next_h => 500, padding => 5, padding_right => 10, background_color_odd => "gray", background_color_even => "lightblue", ); @tmp = @$some_data; $pdftable->table( $pdf, $page, \@tmp, x => $left_edge_of_table, w => 500, start_y => $boty - 10, next_y => 705, start_h => 305, next_h => 505, padding => 5, padding_right => 10, background_color_odd => "navy", background_color_even => "red", #cell background color for even r +ows ); $pdf->saveas(); [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Making PDF Tables by Anonymous Monk on Oct 27, 2014 at 18:57 UTC
That works, but the problem is when the data for the first table grows like in this situation: my $some_data = [ ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ]; my $more_data = [ ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor", "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel", "consequa +t quis, tincidunt vel, felis."], ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.", "Donec odio neque", "Sed eu velit +."], ]; ... #@tmp = @$some_data; @tmp = @$more_data; ... [download] It will overlap the second table.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Making PDF Tables by poj (Abbot) on Oct 27, 2014 at 19:15 UTC
Increase the gap between the tables, 70 seems about right `start_y => $boty - 70,` [download] Update : If that doesn't work, try increasing the `start_h`, `next_h` parameters and use `$nextpage` for the second table. my ($nextpage, undef, $boty) = $pdftable->table( $pdf, $page, $some_data, x => $left_edge_of_table, w => 495, start_y => 750, next_y => 750, start_h => 750, next_h => 750, padding => 5, padding_right => 10, background_color_odd => "gray", background_color_even => "lightblue", ); $pdftable->table( $pdf, $nextpage, $more_data, x => $left_edge_of_table, w => 500, start_y => $boty - 10, next_y => 750, start_h => $boty - 10, next_h => 750, padding => 5, padding_right => 10, background_color_odd => "navy", background_color_even => "red", #cell background color for even r +ows ); [download] poj	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Making PDF Tables by Acar (Initiate) on Oct 28, 2014 at 00:19 UTC
Re^4: Making PDF Tables by Anonymous Monk on Oct 30, 2014 at 15:04 UTC
Re^5: Making PDF Tables by poj (Abbot) on Oct 30, 2014 at 17:27 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re: Making PDF Tables by mhearse (Chaplain) on Oct 24, 2014 at 19:55 UTC
About 6 years ago I used PDF::Template to generate tables in PDF documents: Dynamic tables using PDF::Template I was very pleased with the results. In the end it was CGI app which generated PDF tables from SQL queries.	[reply]
Re^2: Making PDF Tables by perlron (Pilgrim) on Oct 29, 2014 at 08:16 UTC
yes but doesnt PDF::Template require pdflib_pl which is not free for production purposes ? thats some sort of a letdown IMHO. The temporal difficulty with perl is u need to know C well to know it's real nature.else u just keep using* it and writing inefficient code*	[reply]