Making the header of tables repeat when generating a PDF in coldfusion

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22259928

Question

I am generating a report that has many different tables to display different data sets. Often the tables will flow into a second or third page, Does anyone know how to make the table headers repeat?

I cannot use the record count to determine when to insert the header information as the data is of random length so on record with wrapped text could consume 10 lines on the page. I have tried storing the table header as a variable and using , but it displays the last table's header on the top of each page.

Here is some sample code to illustrate the problem:

<cfoutput>
<cfdocument format="PDF" name="TestDetailReport" marginBottom = "1" marginLeft = ".3" marginRight = ".3" marginTop = ".5" orientation="landscape">
    <cfdocumentsection name = "TA Overview" >
        <cfdocumentitem type = "header">
            <table width="100%">
                <tr>
                    <td width="40%">Generated by:</td>
                    <td width="60%" align="left">cfdocumentitem type = "header"</td>
                </tr>
            </table>
        </cfdocumentitem>

        <!--- There will be several sections like this, each with thier own header --->
        <body style="margin: 0px">
            <table style="width:100%;">
                <!-- table header to be repeated on each PDF page -->
                <thead align="left" style="display: table-header-group">
                    <tr>
                        <td colspan="2" style=" text-align:center;color:red">Make the header of this section repeat when the table goes into the next page</td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td style="text-align:center;color:red">Row Number</td>
                        <td style="text-align:center;color:red">This column contains text of random length</td>
                    </tr>
                </thead>
                <!-- table body -->
                <tbody>
                    <cfloop from="1" to="50" index="Index">
                    <tr style="border-bottom:thin;">
                        <td>Row #Index#</td>
                        <td><cfloop from="0" to="#RandRange(1, 50)#" index="randomText">#Index# blah </cfloop></td>
                    </tr>
                    </cfloop>
                </tbody>
            </table>
        </body>

        <cfdocumentitem type = "footer">
            <table width="100%">
                <tr>
                    <td width="12%">Generated by:</td>
                    <td width="13%" align="left">#cgi.auth_user#</td>
                    <td width="50%" rowspan="3" align="left">img src="file:///#ExpandPath('logo.gif')#"</td>
                    <td width="25%" rowspan="3" align="justify">Printed Copy as Part of Prepbook is a Controlled Document. All Other Copies are Uncontrolled.</td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td>Date:</td>
                    <td align="left">#DateFormat(now(), "medium")#</td>
                    <!--- <td align="right"></td> --->
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <td>Page:</td>
                    <td align="left">#cfdocument.currentpagenumber# of #cfdocument.totalpagecount#</td>
                    <!--- <td align="right"></td> --->
                </tr>

            </table>
        </cfdocumentitem>
    </cfdocumentsection>
</cfdocument>

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Solution

I don't think the PDF generator is clever enough to achieve this.

I agree with James A to use enter code here CFDocItem to control WHEN the page breaks occur - it's the only way around it I've ever found.

In the past, we've allowed the user to specify themselves when the page breaks will occur. This works for us because the page breaks they create will still work no matter what data is output (because it's statistical, and its size doesnt change much - unlike large amounts of text).

One suggestion (though could be the worst idea ever) could be to hack the PDF header to contain your table headers [dodges things being thrown]

OTHER TIPS

<cfdocumentitem type= "pagebreak> provides the ability to separate document into pages. I suspect that you will have to re-output your table header each and every time.

See:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec22c24-7758.html

Few Solutions

  • Create a logic that will output table header again if more then n records are in the table. This is not good solution, and I would always skip using cfdocument for my pdf reports, but it can be done. You will face the html problems in cfdocument for start.
  • Better solution is to use ColdFusion Builder.
  • Maybe the best solution is to use ColdFusion Report Builder alternative But this will be time consuming to set everything up and running.

If you decide to go with Report Builder Scenario, which is probably the best for you. here is what you have to do:

STEP 1 -Create cfr(ColdFsuion Report Builder template file) in coldFusion Builder for each different table you have in report. This is pretty simple. Here are some docs

STEP 2 Generate temporary pdf for each "table" using cfreport and then use ddx to merge this files and add/design headers and footers of the report

@BTThomas yes we can done this by using CSS

table { -fs-table-paginate: paginate !important; }

Table header exists even pdf page changes like this

enter image description here

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