I have a very complex dynamic table that I need to output to pdf in laravel 5.6. The project I inherited had Dompdf installed and is already rendering all other content. Therefore, I use it as well for compatibility.
My issue is I have a table to render consisting of 13 columns and undefined number of rows, where intermittently a column may span 13 columns for a heading or a row may span several rows at any given time or a colspan within the rowspan that spans 11 columns from the 3rd row. No html is hardcoded except the <table>, <thead>, <th> and <tbody> tags. The html within the tbody tag is dynamically generated depending on the array data.
Everything looks great in the browser and when I view() the pdf blade as well as ctrl + p it creates a nice pdf, although for some reason rowspan cells spanning to the next page does not carry over markup and content. As soon as I try to stream() the pdf the table becomes warped and looks like a toppled building built by Picasso.
Here is links to pdf's, the one I ctrl + p lost its colour due to me removing names.
File to view pdf printed with ctrl + p
Pdf streamed with Dompdf
Image of viewing pdf in browser
Image of pdf when streaming via Dompdf:
Html sample rendered in browser:
<tr style="background-color: #5b8969;">
<td rowspan="2" style="background-color: #F8C293; color: black;">Spray 4</td>
<td>Pollinate</td>
<td>7-10 days later</td>
<td>BENOMYL WP 25KG </td>
<td>benomyl 500g/kg</td>
<td> </td>
<td>1000</td>
<td>2.00</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Full bloom</td>
<td>Black Spot</td>
<td>WETCIT DUO 20L </td>
<td>borax 10g/orange oil 50g/l</td>
<td> </td>
<td>1000</td>
<td>25.00</td>
<td>100.0000</td>
<td>120.0000L</td>
<td>2500.0000</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="13" style="background-color: #9fb5d3;" class="h3 font-weight-bold">ANOTHER ONE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="7" style="background-color: #F8C293; color: black;">Spray 7</td>
<td>20 cm</td>
<td>African Armyworm</td>
<td>CERATO 250 EC 5L </td>
<td>pyraclostrobin 250g/l</td>
<td> </td>
<td>1000</td>
<td>2.00</td>
<td>10.0000</td>
<td></td>
<td>20.0000</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
Can someone please help and give me a clue on how to output such a complex table with Dompdf? As I would really want to keep on using only one PDF rendering library in this project. Otherwise I am open to suggestions to use another pdf library that can handle rowspan that span pages and this complex layout?
Update
Based on a comment by Don't panic (he suggested validating html and fill empty td tags with ), that he subsequently deleted.
I re-wrote the HTML as a template into my pdf.blade.php view. Now, I only output the values in a loop in my view. Firstly, it becomes easier to maintain and to leave off the validation he suggested. I also filled every empty <td> tag with a hardcoded ' '. This is to more easily see why certain rows end where they should and others not. The result is sadly still the same, a warped table. But it does seem to be a rowspan issue not colspan. The 'rowspan' rows stack after another. So maybe missing a td tr.
Solved rowspan stacking issue
Two weeks of testing and only problem was it was not outputting certain rows' opening tags, which lead to rows not knowing when to begin. Now only problem left is rowspan across pages.
Update on update
So I have really tried everything I can to get DomPdf to do what it is suppose to do, which is rendering pdf's. I have read a bit more and found that this library has a long standing issue of not being able to render rowspan accross pages. Therefore, on to the next rendering library wkhtlmpdf or I could logically divide rowspans to stop at end of page and start again on new page. Will have to check my watch on this one.