PDF export (template customization)

The export dialog

To print a page to PDF, click on the page-icon in the page tools. This opens the export dialog field.

Select the export settings.

Mode:
- Page: Prints the page.
- Page with subpages: Prints the page and all its subpages. This option is only shown if the page has subpages.
- Page with linked pages: Prints the page and the pages that are linked directly from this page.
Template:
- StandardPDF: This prints the page or pages without a cover sheet (unless the template has been edited).
- StandardBookPDF: This adds a cover sheet to the PDF (unless the template has been edited).

By default, the template StandardPDF shows the wiki's logo (from the skin settings page). If there are no custom settings, the default BlueSpice logo is used.

Editing the PDF template

The wiki provides one template for the standard PDF export and one template for the PDF export of books. Both templates offer the same elements for customizing:

Header: The page header of each PDF page.
Content: The content layout
Footer: The page footer of each PDF page.
Document preface: An additional cover page. It has predefined content for the book export. It can additionally also be defined for the standard PDF export
Document appendix: The last page of the PDF export. By default it has no content.
Styles: Custom css-classes can be defined and applied to any of the PDF layout pages.

To edit the PDF templates:

Open the page MediaWiki:PDFCreator
Select the template you want to edit.As an example, we select the StandardPDF template.
Open the page in edit mode. This shows you the current layout of each PDF element. You can click on any tab to switch between the PDF elements you want to customize.
Click the Help-button to see the available parameters you can add to each PDF layout section. The parameters with prefix "book" only apply to the StandardBookPDF template.

Customization examples for the header and footer

Switch to edit mode on the template pages to make your changes.

Add a logo that is different from the wiki logo:

Add a background color to the header and footer

In the Styles tab, add:

/* add a background color to the header and footer */
.pdfcreator-runningheaderfix, .pdfcreator-runningfooterfix {
background-color: #eee;
}

This adds a grey background color.

Remove the underline from the header and footer

In the Styles tab, add:

/* remove the border from the header */
.pdfcreator-runningheaderfix > table {
border-bottom: none !important;
}

/* remove the border from the header */
.pdfcreator-runningfooterfix > table {
border-top: none !important;
}

Use a different logo than the wiki logo

By default, the parameter {{{logo}}} displays the wiki logo in the PDF. If you want to define a different logo for the PDF export, you can use a system message.

Create the page MediaWiki:PDFlogo
Add the image name of a logo that you have uploaded to the wiki and save the page.
```
[[File:my-logo.png|alt=my logo name]]
```
You have now created a page that the wiki can recognize as a system message, because it is located in the MediaWiki namespace.

Replace the{{{logo}}}-parameter in the Header-tab with the syntax for the system message:

	{{int:PDFlogo}}

Customization examples for the cover page

The cover page can be changed from the Document preface-tab. It is usually only used for the book template. The default elements are:

Book title
Logo
Cover image: If a cover image is explicitely set by the user, the cover image is printed automatically. It does not have a parameter. The generated preview images on the bookshelf are not printed on the PDF cover.

Using background colors

Instead of using cover images, you can define some designs based on colors.

Important:If a book has a cover, it will be printed over the layout that is defined in the customized cover layout. Layouts therefore have to be tested in combination with cover images!

Here are some examples and the needed source text for the page MediaWiki:UniversalExport/PDF/Default/Cover page.html. To use them, simply overwrite the existing content in that page.

Cover page 1
Cover page 2
Cover page 3

Cover page 1

<!-- Logo -->
<div style="margin:1cm; text-align:right">
{{{logo}}}
</div>
<!-- Color block -->
<div style="position:absolute; height:2cm; width:1.8cm; background-color:#3a3b3c; 
margin:4cm 0 0 0;  z-index:-500">
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; height:2cm; width:24cm; background-color:#3366cc; 
margin:4cm 0 0 1.8cm;  z-index:-500">
</div>
<!-- Title -->
<div style="font-size:28pt;font-weight:bold;margin:8.5cm 1cm 1cm 1.8cm;color:#333333;">{{{title}}}
</div>
<!-- Subtitle -->
<div style="font-size:16pt; margin:1cm 1cm 1cm 1.8cm; color:#555555">{{{subtitle}}}
</div>

Cover page 2

<div id="coverpage" style="height:29.7cm; width:21cm; margin:-1cm 0 0 -1.5cm;background: #cdcdcd; overflow:hidden;">
<div style="min-height:10cm; background:white; margin:2cm 0 0 0; padding:1cm">
<!-- Logo -->
{| style="width: 100%; text-align: right;"|
|{{{logo}}}
|}
<!-- Titelblock -->
<div style="font-size: 32pt; font-weight:bold; padding:0 1cm; margin:4.5cm 0 0.5cm 0;color:#333333; background:white">{{{title}}}</div>
<div style="font-size: 24pt; margin-top:0; padding:0 1cm; color:#555555;">{{{subtitle}}}
</div>
</div>

Cover page 3

<!-- Logo -->
{| style="width: 100%; text-align: right;"
|{{{logo}}}
|}
<!-- Title block with background color -->
<div style="background-color:#c6752d; margin:4.5cm -2cm 0 -2cm; padding:2cm 2cm 3cm 2cm;">
<div style="font-size: 24pt; font-weight:bold;  margin-bottom:0.5cm; color:#ffffff;">{{{title}}}
</div>
<!-- Subtitle block -->
<div style="font-size: 18pt; margin-top:0.5cm; color:#efefef">{{{subtitle}}}
</div>
</div>

Configuration

Technical Reference: PDFCreator

To submit feedback about this documentation, visit our community forum.