Here’s something that I ran into:
Let’s say you need to write out some tables to a PDF that you are dynamically building. You grab the multicell command, everything looks good, and then you get an automatic page break. Suddenly, your PDF looks like puke on a plate: the cells overwrite each other, rows are on top of rows, rows stretch awkwardly across the page break.
Here’s a way to make MultiCell page breaks look good. I tried this in TCPDF 5 — the use of the current page function was not working for me. (You’re not writing in iTextSharp anymore!)
protected function writeMulticells($cell_array) {
$this->pdf->setAutoPageBreak(false);
$this->pdf->startTransaction();
foreach ($cell_array as $row) {
$this->pdf->MultiCell($row[0], $row[1],
$row[2], $row[3],
$row[4], $row[5],
$row[6]);
}
$this->pdf->ln();
if ($this->pdf->getY() > $this->pdf->getPageHeight() - 30) {
$this->pdf->rollbackTransaction(true);
$this->pdf->AddPage();
foreach ($cell_array as $row) {
$this->pdf->MultiCell($row[0], $row[1], $row[2],
$row[3], $row[4], $row[5], $row[6]);
}
$this->pdf->ln();
}
$this->pdf->commitTransaction();
$this->pdf->setAutoPageBreak(true, 30);
}
(I just happened to have this inside a CodeIgniter model, hence the protected function.)
What we do is the following:
- Disable auto page breaks.
- Start a transaction.
- Write the row.
- If you would have crossed into the footer, roll back, make a new page, and write the row again.
- Commit the transaction.
- Re-enable auto page breaks.
All of the examples I could find suggested using the getPage function, but that didn’t work all of the time in my particular application. Your mileage may vary, of course, but here’s an alternative option.
