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Faster PDF generation with mPDF

We’ve just added a new PDF library to the UCM package. mPDF will create your PDF documents much faster than the old html2ps library. mPDF also supports a lot more advanced CSS rules for those who wish to create great looking invoices.

Important Note:  Your PDFs will initially look bad after this update. It is important to go in and fix the HTML templates so they are compatible with the new mPDF library.

Important Note: If you prefer to use the original PDF library please go to Settings > PDF and choose ‘html2ps’ from the drop down list.

How to upgrade to the new mPDF library:

  1. Go to Settings > Upgrade and perform an upgrade as usual.
  2. If there are lots of updates available please unselect the PDF update and do that one last. Upgrade everything else first.
  3. The PDF upgrade may take some time to come through, it is 10MB. If the update fails please go back and try again. Send in a support ticket if you really get stuck with the update.
  4. Go to Settings > PDF and make sure ‘mPDF’ is selected
  5. Set the PDF media size to A4
  6. Set the PDF padding (left, right, top and bottom) all to 10
  7. Go to Settings > Templates and reset the following templates to default:
    (warning, this will overwrite any custom template invoice designs you have made, make a backup of them first)
    invoice_print
    invoice_payment_history
    invoice_task_list
    quote_pdf
    quote_task_list
  8. Open up an invoice and pring the PDF, make sure it all works.

A big thanks to Manny for assistance with this PDF update!

dtbakerFaster PDF generation with mPDF
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