Next-Gen PDF Generation – Part 1

Before I start, I want to talk about one issue that I’ve faced many times while working in ServiceNow. Whenever I want to generate any custom-styled PDF document in ServiceNow, I have to look around a lot.

I am sure that you must be in the same boat for a-while. Many times, we try to use GeneralForm API solution from the HR module or try to use an external document conversion solution(s). GeneralForm API use iTextPDF v5 which is having many bugs while working with styled HTML to convert.

But no worries, ServiceNow has introduced Next-Gen PDF Generation & Conversion APIs. These APIs are based on a newer release of iTextPDF v7, where it addresses critical flaws of the previous version such as page orientation & text formatting.

Plugin com.snc.apppdfgenerator is activated by default in Quebec

Download PDF Conversion Demo update-set for further steps as I have included all the artefacts that we are going to use in further discussion

Load this update set in your Quebec instance

Let’s see APIs in action

Conversion API

API group to convert HTML/SVG to PDF

HTML to PDF:

• convertToPDF ➔ Convert HTML code to PDF
• convertToPDFWithHeaderFooter ➔ Convert HTML to PDF with Header & Footer

Below is the code syntax to use this api:

var resultX = new sn_pdfgeneratorutils.PDFGenerationAPI().convertToPDF(
					html,
					<<table_name>>,
					<<sys_id_of_record_where_pdf_need_to_attach>>,
					<<pdf_fiile_name_without_.pdf_extension);
gs.info(JSON.stringify(resultX));

Here inputs are:
1st Parameter (html): HTML code to convert into PDF document
2nd Parameter (table_name) : Table name where generated PDF need to be attached
3rd Parameter (sys_id) : Record sys_id to attach generated PDF
4th Parameter (pdf_file_name) : File name for generated pdf (without .pdf extension)

The output consists below properties:
attachment_id : sys_id of the generated attachment file
message : Success or failure message
request_id : sys_id of PDF conversion request record
status : success or fail

To try out:

1. Go to PDF Conversion Demo
   
2. Open PDF Conversion Template, Select record PDFC0001002 and change the HTML template as per your own. Here I’ve included one sample HTML.
3. Open PDF Conversion Demo Scripts, Open Sample HTML to PDF
4. Make changes in the table and record sys_id
   
5. Hit Run Fix Script
6. Go to incident table (or your selected table) and open above record. You will see an attachment having name my_smaple_pdf.pdf. Download it and output should be something like below
   

Now, let’s see how can we have headers and footers in our generated PDF. To have desired output, we need to make few changes.

1st, we have to create object to hold header and footer data

var _map = new Object();
    _map["HeaderImageAttachmentId"]="978f17a51bb22850abbdbb7c0a4bcb3e";
    _map["HeaderImageAlignment"]="left";
    _map["FooterImageAttachmentId"]="978f17a51bb22850abbdbb7c0a4bcb3e";
    _map["FooterImageAlignment"]="top_left";
    _map["FooterText"]="Creatde by Artemis";
    _map["FooterTextAlignment"]="bottom_left";
    _map["PageSize"]="A4";
    _map["GeneratePageNumber"]="true";
    _map["TopOrBottomMargin"]="75";
    _map["LeftOrRightMargin"]="36";
    _map["HeaderImageHeight"]="50";

In this, we are having
HeaderImageAttachmentId / FooterImageAttachmentId : sys_id of attachment image to be used as header
HeaderImageAlignment / FooterImageAlignment / FooterTextAlignment : Placement of header, values (left / right / center with combination with top/bottom like: top_left)
FooterText : Any footer text
PageSize : Page size, values (A4, LEGAL, LETTER)
GeneratePageNumber : Generate page number(can generate only numbers)
TopOrBottomMargin : Top and bottom margin, Default value 72
LeftOrRightMargin : Left and right margin, Default is 36
HeaderImageHeight : Customize header image height

All used attachment are included in PDF Conversion Template record PDFC0001002 in update set

Code syntax to generate PDF with header and footer is:

 var resultX = new sn_pdfgeneratorutils.PDFGenerationAPI().convertToPDFWithHeaderFooter(
					html,
					<<table_name>>,
					<<sys_id_of_record_where_pdf_need_to_attach>>,
					<<pdf_fiile_name_without_.pdf_extension>>,
					myobj);

To see it in action, use Sample HTML to PDF with Header n Footer in PDF Conversion Demo Script. Once run, output should be something like below:

Now let’s see how we can play with SVG content

SVG to PDF:

• convertSVGToPDF ➔ Convert SVG image(xml code) code to PDF
• convertSVGToPDFWithSize ➔ Convert SVG image(xml code) code to PDF with sizing parameter
• addSVGToPDF ➔ add SVG image to PDF

Let’s understand SVG first. SVG define graphics in XML format. Every element and every attribute in SVG files can be animated. For our demo example, I’ve uploaded one sample svg on record PDFC0001002.

To work wit h svg, we have to extract its XML content and use it in our script (just open svg in any editor and copy xml content, open record PDFC0001003 for sample).

Below is the code syntax for SVG to PDF conversion

var v = new sn_pdfgeneratorutils.SVGToPDFConversionAPI;
var result = v.convertSVGToPDF(
                      svg,
                      <<pdf_fiile_name_without_.pdf_extension>>,
                      <<table_name>>,
					  <<sys_id_of_record_where_pdf_need_to_attach>>
					);

Here inputs are:
1st Parameter (svg): SVG’s XML content to convert into PDF document
2nd Parameter (pdf_file_name) : File name for generated pdf (without .pdf extension)
3rd Parameter (table_name) : Record sys_id to attach generated PDF
4th Parameter (sys_id) : Record sys_id to attach generated PDF

To see it in action, use Sample HTML to PDF with SVG in PDF Conversion Demo Script. Once run, output should be something like below:

Rest method are self-explanatory. I would like you to get it done by your own. Do let me know in case you are stuck in these functions.

In the next post, we are gonna work with Utility API's where once can work with fillable PDFs.