Team Ravenglass: Including Images in a PDF created in CFDOCUMENT

Including Images in a PDF created in CFDOCUMENT

Jun 9

posted by Bridget Maloney in PDF, Coldfusion | 10 Comments

One problem that I ran into while creating PDF's in Coldfusion recently was with including images. Despite using what I thought was a valid path (since it would show up in my browser) and using the correct syntax, my images were showing up as red x's. I found out that there is a little trick to including images in a PDF in CF.

After reading through many different blog entries, I learned that there are many reasons as to why an image won't show up in a PDF on a CF server. Basically, it came down to it being some sort of permissions or security issue between the HTTP request sent from the PDF for the image and the Coldfusion server.

Including an image like this didn't work:

view plain print about

1<img src="http://ravenglass.com/images2/images/head_r1_c1.gif" />

However, including an image using the File system, rather than HTTP works:

view plain print about

1<img src="file:///#ExpandPath('/images2/images/head_r1_c1.gif')#"/>

Note the 3 forward slashes, as opposed to two.

This entry was posted on June 9, 2010 at 5:26 PM and has received 2243 views. There are currently 10 comments. Print this entry.

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#1 by Lee on 6/10/10 - 9:23 AM

We ran into the same problem some time ago. We stumbled around looking for a solution and found this on a blog (it works). Your's appears much cleaner. Thanks.


<cffunction name="localUrl" >
   <cfargument name="file" />
   <cfset var fpath = ExpandPath(file)>
   <cfset var f="">
   <cfset f = createObject("java", "java.io.File")>
   <cfset f.init(fpath)>
   <cfreturn f.toUrl().toString()>
</cffunction>

<img src=#localURL(ImagePath)# />
#2 by Ben Nadel on 6/10/10 - 10:32 AM

My experience with CFDocument is rather limited; but, I know wit CF8, CFDocument added the "localUrl" attribute for use with images. It basically tells the server to get the files without using HTTP. Not sure how you have to format your IMG SRC values; but, it might be worth looking into.
#3 by Bridget on 6/10/10 - 10:50 AM

@Lee Thanks!

@Ben I did see the "localUrl" attribute for the cfdocument tag and did try setting it to "yes" but it still wouldn't work. Here are some of the syntaxes that I tried:
<code>
<img src="/stn_logo.gif" />
<img src="#expandpath('/stn_logo.gif')#" alt="Signature Travel Network" />
</code>

I did just re-check the Adobe docs (http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/he...) and it specifies that the img syntax should look like:
<code>
<image src="images/rose.jpg">
</code>
#4 by Ben Nadel on 6/10/10 - 10:53 AM

Hmm, well, I figured I'd throw it out there in case you hadn't come across it. I'm glad the file:/// approach worked; I don't think I've seen that before. Thanks for the tip.
#5 by Bridget on 6/10/10 - 10:55 AM

@Ben Thanks for the input! Your blog has helped me out many-a-time, glad you found ours and was able to get something out of it :) ... if I have time some day, I may investigate localUrl more too ...
#6 by Ben Nadel on 6/10/10 - 10:57 AM

Rock on - it's all about team work :)
#7 by Rene Ramos on 9/9/10 - 11:56 AM

I had the same issue and this entry helped me resolve the issue.
Just wanted to say thank you!
#8 by Abram on 10/14/10 - 4:39 PM

Just curious, are you using load balanced or clustered servers? I've found that on our production servers (CF9 standard servers load balanced using a cisco appliance) the localurl attribute does not work at all. I'm forced to use the 'file://' path too.
#9 by Bridget on 11/10/10 - 10:34 AM

Hey Abram, We do actually use load balanced servers too.
#10 by Joseph Lee on 1/26/11 - 12:28 PM

Was search around the interwebs forever to solve a similar issue I had. This worked like a charm. Thanks!