Moodle Moodle 2.3.1+ (Build: 20120726) in a book that is viewed in san serif produces a print view in times roman, and worse prints in a sort of non-standard poorly kerned font. I'm using Chrome.
I was suprised to find no question about this here. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to improve the output of the print view?
-Derek
I thought I would post a screen snap to show what I mean in case my first post was unclear. (See below) The print version is in a different font. I'm just checking to see if this is a problem with me before I post a tracker item. Why am I worrying about this? My boss doesn't like serifs.
-Derek
BUMP
It is very rare that something goes so long without a response.
-Derek
Hi Derek
Maybe we need back 'Recent Activity Block' in order to watch 'New forum posts' in front page course
Until today I saw your post just because I was looking someone about Book
Kind regards,
Maryel
Hi Derek,
This is happening basically because, in book view your theme controls how is your book is displayed, where as during printing book/tool/print/print.css determines the font, which is defaulted to Times new roman. Am not sure if it was intentional not to include the theme css in the print file or not. Anyway for an immediate solution, if you use specific font style when declaring book content in text editor it wont be an issue. As this will effectively overwrite any other formating in both places. If you wish, feel free to create a tracker issue, so it can be further looked into and decided if the theme css can/should be included in the print pages.
Thanks
Ankit,
You are right. Select text and change font does create a change that carries over to the print view. I presume there is no way to insert something to do the whole book at once.
I have been using firebug to change the font specifications in the book-print view which is not an end-user friendly approach.
I've added an FAQ to the docs: http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Book_FAQ
I will think about how to phrase a tracker request.
Thanks for the reply.
-Derek
Truly said on this, that the book that is viewed in san serif can produce a print view in times roman and for the point of worse prints then there will be non-standard of the font. So better is to use the chrome, which is used. Great.
I wanted more flexibility of the printed book format. I ended up hacking moodle | mod | book | tools | peint | print.css
I did not like sizes being expressed in em for print output, so changed to pt. I reduced the size of the book title, chapter headings, and the white space around them.
It would be useful to do some of this in Edit Settings, but I am not holding my breath.
We could also use an "Edit settings" feature for printing books. Has someone started a tracker issue for this yet?
Justina, this completely slipped off my radar. I thought I had made a tracker request.
Tis here:
Improve printing for Book module, https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-43385
You know what o do.
-Derek
Hi folks
This is more a work around than a solution , but I've been using princexml (www.princexml.com) to print my books. It produces beautifully formatted pdfs that obey all the css rules you could ever wish for. But...
I had to hack moodle to make it work, starting from /mod/book/tool/print.php, to direct the html to prince rather than the default print mechnism . It was relatively straightforward to do, and I'm happy to show anybody who's interested the way to go.
Chris
OK, Chris, if you are still there.
Can you post your solution?
Can you add it to the tracker item to see if we can get it into core?
-Derek
My second little trial to see if "Feature Request" in the title attracts both interest with ability to act (ie to code), time and inclination.
Here's my code. It's a bit hacky, especially the image bit because of the way image files are stored (pathname hashes and all that), but it's a start. It's definitely not good enough for core: somebody will have to work on it!
Basically it reads the book chapters and then concatenates them into one long string of xml, which is what prince requires. This MUST be perfectlly formed though; any errors and prince will fail.
<?php
// This file is part of Moodle - http://moodle.org/
//
// Moodle is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
// it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
// the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
// (at your option) any later version.
//
// Moodle is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
// but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
// MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
// GNU General Public License for more details.
//
// You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
// along with Moodle. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>;.
/**
* Book printing
*
* @package booktool_print
* @copyright 2004-2011 Petr Skoda {@link http://skodak.org}
* @license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU GPL v3 or later
*/
require(dirname(__FILE__).'/../../../../config.php');
require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/locallib.php');
require_once('cja_image_function.php');
$id = required_param('id', PARAM_INT); // Course Module ID
$chapterid = optional_param('chapterid', 0, PARAM_INT); // Chapter ID
// =========================================================================
// security checks START - teachers and students view
// =========================================================================
$cm = get_coursemodule_from_id('book', $id, 0, false, MUST_EXIST);
$course = $DB->get_record('course', array('id'=>$cm->course), '*', MUST_EXIST);
$book = $DB->get_record('book', array('id'=>$cm->instance), '*', MUST_EXIST);
require_course_login($course, true, $cm);
$context = context_module::instance($cm->id);
require_capability('mod/book:read', $context);
require_capability('booktool/print:print', $context);
// Security checks END.
$PAGE->set_url('/mod/book/quickguide.php', array('id'=>$id, 'chapterid'=>$chapterid));
unset($id);
unset($chapterid);
// Setup Prince
include 'prince.php'; #The prince wrapper
$prince = new Prince("/home/chcja/bin/prince"); #This is where your prince installation is
$prince->setLog('/home/chcja/bin/prince_log.txt'); #Log for debugging
$prince->addStyleSheet('manual.css'); #This is your print stylesheet
// End prince setup
//Create pdfcontent, the xml string that will get given to prince.
$book_title = $COURSE->fullname;
$pdfcontent= '<html><body>';
$pdfcontent .= "<p class='book_title'>$book_title</p>";
// read book chapters
$chapters = book_preload_chapters($book);
$strbooks = get_string('modulenameplural', 'mod_book');
$strbook = get_string('modulename', 'mod_book');
$strtop = get_string('top', 'mod_book');
add_to_log($course->id, 'quickguide', 'view', 'tool/print/quickguide.php?id='.$cm->id, $book->id, $cm->id);
$allchapters = $DB->get_records('book_chapters', array('bookid'=>$book->id), 'pagenum');
list($toc, $titles) = booktool_print_get_toc($chapters, $book, $cm);
// chapters
$link1 = $CFG->wwwroot.'/mod/book/view.php?id='.$course->id.'&chapterid=';
$link2 = $CFG->wwwroot.'/mod/book/view.php?id='.$course->id;
foreach ($chapters as $ch) // This takes each individual chapter and joins them into one long one
{
$chapter = $allchapters[$ch->id];
if ($chapter->noprint) { // Noprint is a customisation I made to allow individual chapters of a book not to be printed
continue;
}
if ($chapter->hidden) {
continue;
}
$pdfcontent .= '<div class="book_chapter">';
if (!$book->customtitles) {
$pdfcontent .= '<p class="book_chapter_title">'.$titles[$ch->id].'</p>';
}
$content = str_replace($link1, '#ch', $chapter->content);
$content = str_replace($link2, '#top', $content);
$content = file_rewrite_pluginfile_urls($content, 'pluginfile.php', $context->id, 'mod_book', 'chapter', $ch->id);
$content = format_text($content, $chapter->contentformat, array('noclean'=>true, 'context'=>$context));
$content = get_images($content); #function for getting images
$pdfcontent .= "$content</div>";
}
$pdfcontent .= '</body></html>'; #Closing tags for the xml that makes the pdf
// Pass it to prince to print
#echo ($pdfcontent); #For debugging, dump to screen instead
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=".urlencode($book_title)."pdf");
$prince->convert_string_to_passthru($pdfcontent);
?>
Well, still no movement on the tracker item https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-43385
But there is a fix here, is anyone interested in helping create a patch?
-Derek
Thank you. Very helpful! I know of several others who will be interested in seeing your post.
