Multiple Column PDF

#27097

Hello. I am trying to render html to pdf such that only a portion of the html content is rendered to pdf in dual column format. I want the output to look like this:

Stuff before the dual-column text

column1text column2text
column1text column2text
… …

Here is a sample test:

       @Test
public void dualColumnTest() throws Exception {
PD4ML pd4ml = new PD4ML();
pd4ml.outputFormat(PD4ML.PDF);
Insets insets = new Insets(10,10,10,10);
pd4ml.setPageInsetsMM(insets);
pd4ml.setHtmlWidth(800);
pd4ml.adjustHtmlWidth();
Map<String, String> m = new HashMap<String, String>();
m.put(PD4Constants.PD4ML_MEDIA_TYPE_PRINT, "override");
pd4ml.setDynamicParams(m);
pd4ml.generateMulticolumn(2, 5, true);
String content = "" +
"<html><body>" +
"Stuff before the dual-column text
" +
"<div usedualcolumn="true">Lots of text to be placed in dual columns
</div>" +
"</body></html>";
StringReader htmlInput = new StringReader(content);
FileOutputStream pdfOutput = new FileOutputStream("c:/bb/foo.pdf");
pd4ml.render(htmlInput, pdfOutput);
}

But when I use generateMulticolumn(2,5,true) it sets it for the entire document. How can I select only a portion of the html content for dual column pdf? Thank you!

#29925

I should add that I also tried to get the html properly rendering in browser with dual column. I did it using this head meta:

.printDualColumn {
-moz-column-count: 2;
-webkit-column-count: 2;
column-count: 2;
}

And then I surrounded the content which needs dual column printing with:

<div class="printDualColumn">

It renders correctly in dual column format in the browser from the html. But when I render the html to pdf using pd4ml it does not render in two column.

    @Test
public void dualColumnTest2() throws Exception {
PD4ML pd4ml = new PD4ML();
pd4ml.outputFormat(PD4ML.PDF);
Insets insets = new Insets(10,10,10,10);
pd4ml.setPageInsetsMM(insets);
pd4ml.setHtmlWidth(800);
pd4ml.adjustHtmlWidth();
Map<String, String> m = new HashMap<String, String>();
m.put(PD4Constants.PD4ML_MEDIA_TYPE_PRINT, "override");
pd4ml.setDynamicParams(m);
String content = "" +
"<html>" +
"<head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><style type="text/css">" +
"n.printDualColumn {n" +
"tttt-moz-column-count: 2;n" +
"tttt-webkit-column-count: 2;n" +
"ttttcolumn-count: 2;n" +
"ttt}n" +
"</style></head>" +
"<body>" +
"Stuff before the dual-column text
" +
"<div class="printDualColumn">" +
"Lots of text to be placed in dual columns" +
"Lots of text to be placed in dual columns" +
"Lots of text to be placed in dual columns" +
"Lots of text to be placed in dual columns" +
"</div>" +
"</body></html>";
StringReader htmlInput = new StringReader(content);
FileOutputStream htmlInputFile = new FileOutputStream("c:/bb/foo2.html");
htmlInputFile.write(content.getBytes());
FileOutputStream pdfOutput = new FileOutputStream("c:/bb/foo2.pdf");
pd4ml.render(htmlInput, pdfOutput);
}

Is there something I can do either in the css or in my java code?

#29926

For the time being there is only solution with <pd4ml:layoutbox> tag. It is not exactly what you need, but in some cases it can be helpful.

The tag tries to fit all given content into a specified box and automatically goes multicolumn when it is not possible with a single column.

See pdf-generation-troubleshooting-f4/is-it-possible-to-toggle-multicolumn-from-page-to-page-t255.html

Alternatively you may split your document to single- and multi-column parts, convert them separately and merge the resulting PDFs into a single doc (usin PD4ML’s PDF merge API).

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