Generate PDF with Swift

Question

I would like to create a PDF from a UITableView in Swift. Ill found some tutorials for Objective C, and tried it out but there is still no file generated by this code.

Answer 1

Here is my approach. Use a template view. It has all the static texts and images. And then for every page in pdf use this template view. Here is the function that I use:

func renderAsPDF(demandEntry: ParsedDemandEntry, inView view: UIView) -> NSData? {
    let entries = demandEntry.demands
    let pageCount = Int(ceil(Double(entries.count) / Double(demandCountForPage)))
    if pageCount != 0 {
        let views = (1...pageCount).map { (pageNumber: Int) -> UIView in
            let pdfPageView = createTemplatePageViewWithParsedEntry(demandEntry, inView: view)

            let pageRange = ((pageNumber - 1) * demandCountForPage)..<(min(pageNumber * demandCountForPage, entries.count))
            let entriesForPage = Array(entries[pageRange])

            addEntries(entriesForPage, toView: pdfPageView)

            pdfPageView.removeFromSuperview()

            return pdfPageView
        }

        return toPDF(views)
    } else {
        return nil
    }
}

The ParsedDemandEntry is my model object. The view parameter is a container view to prepare pdf view in it. This is necessary because I use auto layout to position all labels in pdf view. Without a super view layout process won't work.

Let's walk into function. First I get entries from model object. Think these are rows that needs to populate in pdf. After that I calculate how many pages I need. Then the loop begins. In every loop I create a tamplate view. (pdfPageView). And then fill it with entries. (addEntries(_:toView:) function call).

After the loop I give all views to toPDF function. It creates NSData that represents pdf. Here is how toPDF function look like:

private func toPDF(views: [UIView]) -> NSData? {

    if views.isEmpty {
        return nil
    }

    let pdfData = NSMutableData()
    UIGraphicsBeginPDFContextToData(pdfData, CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 612, height: 792), nil)

    let context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()

    for view in views {
        UIGraphicsBeginPDFPage()
        view.layer.renderInContext(context)
    }

    UIGraphicsEndPDFContext()

    return pdfData
}

It is fairly simple. First I create pdf context. And then loop through views array. For each view It renders view into pdf context.

I hope this will help.