RabidPrawns - Document Helpers

RabidPrawns is a simple library that loads some helpers into Prawn::Document for page layouts. Currently two “rabids” are available to load into Prawn::Document. These helper methods should work on most versions of Prawn and have been somewhat tested on versions starting at 0.6.3 through 0.8.4. If you find any bugs, please create an issue on the github site.

Loading Rabids

Loading rabids into the prawn document is easy:

require 'rubygems'
require 'rabidprawns'

RabidPrawns.load_rabid :columned_page

That’s it. Your next Prawn::Document instance will have a Prawn::Document#columned_page method for writing out columned pages.

Available Rabids

Currently, there are only two rabids available. To get a list of available rabids:

require 'rubygems'
require 'rabidprawns'

puts RabidPrawns.available_rabids

Columned Page

The columned page rabid will provide a Prawn::Document#columned_page method. It takes the text for the pages, the title to use for the pages and some options for how things should be laid out. If the content fills the page, it will automatically move to the next page, reprint the title and continue printing the content. Here’s a simple example script you can run:

require 'rubygems'
require 'rabidprawns'

RabidPrawns.load_rabid :columned_page
doc = Prawn::Document.new
doc.columned_page('this is some text to print ' * 1000, 'This is the title', :columns => 3, :title_colspan => 2)
output = File.open('example.pdf', 'w+')
output.write doc.render
output.close
puts 'Example complete'

There are a few options available. Take a look at the docs for a complete listing.

Simple Tables

This rabid will provide a Prawn::Document#simple_tables method for printing tables. The idea is simple. Provide an array of table structures in an array, with any desired options, and print the tables on the page. Simple tables will properly break at the end of a page, accounting for margin restrictions, and start a new page, with table title and headings. Here is a simple example:

require 'rubygems'
require 'rabidprawns'

RabidPrawns.load_rabid :simple_tables

a = Prawn::Document.new
tables = [
  {
    :title => 'thing',
    :contents=> [
      {
        :headings => ["one", "two", "three", "four"], 
        :rows=>[[1, 2, 3, 4], [{:color => [100, 0, 0, 0], :background_color => [0, 100, 0, 0], :content => "this"}, "is", "working", "hopefully"], [nil, 'a', 'b', 'c']]
      }
    ]
  }
]
a.simple_tables tables
f = File.open('example.pdf', 'w+')
f.write a.render
f.close
puts 'Example complete'

Simple tables has a few nice features, like dynamically changing column numbers within a table (this is why :contents is an Array), applying scoped options at various points during table construction, automatically sizing the table to fit within constraints, printing title and/or headings on new pages and much more. For a longer explanation of features, and available options, take a look at the RDoc for the #simple_tables method.