pdfHtml5 button to send table via PHPMailer

koppanm · June 22

Hi all,
I have partially succeeded with creating a send button to post filtered editor table data (using predefined search criteria) to phpmailer. The message comes thru, but the attachment file only contains "true".
Here is my code. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Miklos

topStart: {
            buttons: [ 
                {
    extend: 'pdfHtml5',
    text: 'Send as PDF',
    title: 'DataTable Export',
    customize: function (doc) {
      // optional: customize PDF
    },
    action: function (e, dt, button, config) {
      let pdfDoc = window.pdfMake.createPdf(config);
      pdfDoc.getBlob(function (blob) {
        let formData = new FormData();
        formData.append("pdf", blob, "datatable.pdf");

        // send PDF to server via AJAX
        fetch("send_pdf_email_koppan.php", {
          method: "POST",
          body: formData,
        })
        .then(response => response.text())
        .then(result => alert("Email sent: " + result))
        .catch(error => alert("Error: " + error));
      });
    }
  },

allan · June 22

Sounds like a problem in the send_pdf_email_koppan.php file rather than the client-side. Does the POST request include the generated PDF data?

Allan

koppanm · June 22

Dear Allan,
Honestly, I do not know.
Here is the <code>send_pdf_email_koppan.php</code> file:

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php'; // Composer: phpmailer/phpmailer

use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;

if (!isset($_FILES['pdf'])) {
    http_response_code(400);
    echo "No PDF received.";
    exit;
}

$tmpName = $_FILES['pdf']['tmp_name'];
$originalName = $_FILES['pdf']['name'];
$target = __DIR__ . '/' . $originalName;

move_uploaded_file($tmpName, $target);

// Send email with PHPMailer
$mail = new PHPMailer(true);

try {
    $mail->CharSet = "UTF-8";
    $mail->isSendmail();
    $mail->setFrom('no-reply@laparo.hu', 'GYN Team');
    $mail->addReplyTo('no-reply@laparo.hu', 'GYN Team');
    $mail->addAddress('name@icloud.com', 'Miklos Koppan');
    $mail->Subject = 'PDF tábla csatolva!';
    $mail->addCC('name@gmail.com', 'Viktoria Szanto');
    $mail->Body = 'PDF table export attached.';
    $mail->addAttachment($target);

    $mail->send();
    echo "PDF emailed successfully.";
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Mailer Error: {$mail->ErrorInfo}";
}

allan · June 23

I would suggest checking the network inspector in your browser to make sure that the POST request has the PDF data. After that' I'd suggest checking that the file does get moved to the $target directory (you aren't deleting it, so it should still be present after the PHP file has completed its execution). See what that is and that it is a valid PDF. The result of that should hopefully inform you of what your next debugging action would be (i.e. if it isn't the PDF, trace back from there, etc).

Allan

koppanm · June 23

Thank you Allan. I followed your instruction and checked first, wheter the file does get moved to the $target directory (since I am not deleting it, so it should still be present after the PHP file has completed its execution). Surprisingly, I have found no pdf file generated at all. I belive, the construction of the file is where the clue is. Will try a different approach, now it bothers me so much.

allan · June 23

Next step is to make sure that it is in the request body for the Ajax request the client-side is sending. Use the browser's network tools to check that.

Allan

koppanm · June 26

Will check further

koppanm · June 26

This is what I get. The button shows continuously spinning circle, and the "time" tab of inspector show "waiting" status.

Summary
URL: https://penzugy.laparo.hu/DTEditorOrvDiv/send_pdf_email_koppan.php
Status: 200
Source: Network
Address: 185.33.55.22:443
Initiator:
table.orv_div.js:189

Request
:method: POST
:scheme: https
:authority: penzugy.laparo.hu
:path: /DTEditorOrvDiv/send_pdf_email_koppan.php
Accept: /
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Accept-Language: en-GB,en;q=0.9
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Length: 6189
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundary7n5FucJNBLtAKDGq
Cookie: PHPSESSID=8f6a285a4cfae916baeaf4d9e47bff48; phpbb3_49udr_k=; phpbb3_49udr_sid=a42c1a28ab83a831cd38420a6168822f; phpbb3_49udr_u=2; phpbb3_49udr_ba_2=1744195485; phpbb3_49udr_ccat=%5B%22calendar_on_index%22%2C%22fid_14%22%5D; phpbb3_49udr_ba_1=1744136787; phpbb3_fn1je_k=; phpbb3_fn1je_sid=466e721fc17ea90b6d0a50fb641dcd81; phpbb3_fn1je_u=1
Host: penzugy.laparo.hu
Origin: https://penzugy.laparo.hu
Referer: https://penzugy.laparo.hu/DTEditorOrvDiv/
Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty
Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors
Sec-Fetch-Site: same-origin
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.6 Safari/605.1.15

Response
:status: 200
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2025 19:30:52 GMT
Server: Apache

Request Data
MIME Type: multipart/form-data
Boundary: ----WebKitFormBoundary7n5FucJNBLtAKDGq
Request Data:

koppanm · June 26

I believe the clue is somewhere here:
if (isset($_FILES['pdf']) && $_FILES['pdf']['error'] === UPLOAD_ERR_OK) {
$uploadDir = sys_get_temp_dir();
$uploadFile = $uploadDir . '/' . basename($_FILES['pdf']['name']);

if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES['pdf']['tmp_name'], $uploadFile)) {
    $mail = new PHPMailer(true);

I have not specified (nor created) an upload directory yet. May this be the reason?

kthorngren · June 26

I think the problem starts with this:

let pdfDoc = window.pdfMake.createPdf(config);

The config parameter is documented in buttons.buttons.action as:

The button's configuration object

PDFMake won't understand this object and won't be able to make a PDF out of it. Take a look at buttons.html5.js and find DataTable.ext.buttons.pdfHtml5. Here you will see how Datatables builds the document for pdfMake.createPdf().

I'm not quite sure the best way to handle this as I've not done it before but you could take the relevant parts of that code and put in your action function or possibly add the ajax request to the end of the function in buttons.html5.js. If you modify buttons.html5.js then you will need to keep up those modifications every time you upgrade buttons.

Another option might be to use buttons.exportData() to get teh table data, in the buttons.buttons.action function, to send via ajax to a server based PHP PDF library.

Kevin

koppanm · June 27

Hi all,
I have finally managed it with success.
Thank you for all your efforts trying to help me achieve this.
For those being in a similar scenario, I would like to share how this can be done.
Many thanks once more,

Yours sincerely,
Miklos

-- JS button config --

buttons: [ 
                {
    extend: 'pdfHtml5',
    text: '<i class="fa-solid fa-file-pdf"></i> Email to..',
    className: 'btn btn-sm', 
    title: 'DataTable Export',
    
    customize: function (doc) {
      // optional: customize PDF
    },
    action: function (e, dt, button, config) {
  // Step 1: Get filtered data from the table
  const data = dt.rows({ search: "applied" }).data().toArray();

  // Step 2: Create header and rows
  const headers = [
    "dátum", "név", "műtét", "operatőr", "assziszt", "orvosdíj", "státusz", "számlára"
  ];
  const rows = data.map(row => [
    row.date,
    row.name,
    row.op,
    row.surgeon,
    row.assist,
    row.orv.toLocaleString("hu-HU"),
    row.state,
    parseInt(row.orv_div).toLocaleString("hu-HU")
  ]);

  // Step 3: Calculate the total
  const total = data.reduce((sum, row) => sum + parseInt(row.orv_div || 0), 0);
  const totalRow = [
    "", "", "", "", "", "", "Total:", total.toLocaleString("hu-HU") + " Ft"
  ];

  // Step 4: Define PDF document
  const docDefinition = {
    watermark: {
    text: 'Watermark text',       // Your watermark text
    color: 'gray',           // Optional
    opacity: 0.1,            // Between 0 and 1
    bold: true,              // Optional
    italics: false,          // Optional
    fontSize: 60             // Size of the watermark text
  },
    pageOrientation: "landscape",
    content: [
      { text: 'Text comes here', style: 'header' },
      {
        style: 'tableExample',
        table: {
          headerRows: 1,
          body: [headers, ...rows, totalRow]
        },
        layout: 'lightHorizontalLines'
      }
    ],
    styles: {
      header: {
        fontSize: 18,
        bold: true,
        margin: [0, 0, 0, 10]
      },
      tableExample: {
        margin: [0, 5, 0, 15]
      }
    }
  };

  // Step 5: Send PDF via AJAX
  pdfMake.createPdf(docDefinition).getBlob(function (blob) {
    const formData = new FormData();
    formData.append("pdf", blob, "filename.pdf");

    fetch("send_pdf.php", {
      method: "POST",
      body: formData
    })
    .then(response => response.text())
    .then(result => {
      alert("Email sent successfully.\n\n" + result);
    })
    .catch(error => {
      alert("Error: " + error);
    });
  });
}
]

-- PHP file --

<?php
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);

use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\Exception;

require '../PHPMailer/vendor/autoload.php'; // Adjust if needed

echo "Step 1: PHP is running!\n";
echo "Step 2: PHPMailer loaded\n";

// Create log
file_put_contents("log.txt", "Script started\n", FILE_APPEND);

// Check file upload
if (!isset($_FILES['pdf'])) {
    echo "No PDF uploaded.\n";
    file_put_contents("log.txt", "No PDF in \$_FILES\n", FILE_APPEND);
    exit;
}

$tmpPath = $_FILES['pdf']['tmp_name'];
$fileName = $_FILES['pdf']['name'];
$fileSize = $_FILES['pdf']['size'];

file_put_contents("log.txt", "Received file: $fileName ($fileSize bytes)\n", FILE_APPEND);

if ($fileSize < 100) {
    echo "File too small.\n";
    file_put_contents("log.txt", "File too small or empty\n", FILE_APPEND);
    exit;
}

move_uploaded_file($tmpPath, "filename.pdf");
file_put_contents("log.txt", "Saved telj_ig.pdf\n", FILE_APPEND);

// Now send the email
$mail = new PHPMailer(true);
// DEBUG
$mail->SMTPDebug = 2;
$mail->Debugoutput = function($str, $level) {
    file_put_contents("mail_debug.txt", "Level $level: $str\n", FILE_APPEND);
};

try {
    $mail->isSMTP();
    $mail->Host       = 'smtp.gmail.com';         // Your SMTP server
    $mail->SMTPAuth   = true;
    $mail->Username   = 'me@domain.hu'; // Your Gmail or SMTP address
    $mail->Password   = 'pwd';      // Use Gmail App Password
    $mail->SMTPSecure = PHPMailer::ENCRYPTION_STARTTLS;
    $mail->Port       = 587;

    $mail->setFrom('me@domain.hu', 'team');
    $mail->addReplyTo('no-reply@domain.hu', 'Do Not Reply');
    $mail->addAddress('me@domain.hu', 'Me');


    // Add BCC recipients
    $mail->addBCC('you@gmail.com', 'You');

    $mail->isHTML(true); // THIS IS THE LINE

    $mail->Subject = 'My subject';
    
    
    $mail->Body = '
    <p>My message></p>
    ';

    $mail->addAttachment('filename.pdf');

    $mail->send();
    echo "SMTP mail sent successfully.\n";
    file_put_contents("log.txt", "SMTP mail sent successfully\n", FILE_APPEND);
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "SMTP Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
    file_put_contents("log.txt", "SMTP Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo . "\n", FILE_APPEND);
}

allan · June 27

Hi Miklos,

Nice one! Thanks for sharing your solution with us .

Allan

pdfHtml5 button to send table via PHPMailer

pdfHtml5 button to send table via PHPMailer

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pdfHtml5 button to send table via PHPMailer

pdfHtml5 button to send table via PHPMailer

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