Prawn/Labels: Label generator for Prawn PDFs

Prawn/Labels takes the guess work out of generating labels using Prawn

Install

Using RubyGems

$ gem install prawn-labels

Using Bundler

gem "prawn-labels"

Usage

We’ve tried to make generating labels as simple as possible with Prawn::Labels. If you have an object which responds to each, then you’re in business.

Create and save a PDF file

require 'prawn/labels'

names = ["Jordan", "Chris", "Jon", "Mike", "Kelly", "Bob", "Greg"]

Prawn::Labels.generate("names.pdf", names, :type => "Avery5160") do |pdf, name|
  pdf.text name
end

This creates a document with a name from the names array in each label. The labels will be formatted for Avery 5160 labels. Formats are defined in the prawn/labels/types.yaml file, or by loading a custom hash or yaml file

For a full list of examples, take a look in the examples folder.

Generating labels in a Rails controller

class LabelsController < ApplicationController
  def fancy_labels
    names = ["Jordan", "Chris", "Jon", "Mike", "Kelly", "Bob", "Greg"]
  
    labels = Prawn::Labels.render(names, :type => "Avery5160") do |pdf, name|
      pdf.text name
    end

    send_data labels, :filename => "names.pdf", :type => "application/pdf"
  end
end

Notice here we use the render method rather than generate.

Scale text to fit label

Prawn::Labels.generate( "names.pdf", names, :type => "Avery5160",
                        :shrink_to_fit => true) do |pdf, name|
  pdf.text name
end

Custom label types

If the label type you need to use isn’t defined in prawn/labels/types.yaml file, you can define and load your own.

Prawn::Labels.types = '/path/to/custom/types.yaml'

Prawn::Labels.generate("names.pdf", names, :type => "Custom123") do |pdf, name|
  pdf.text name
end

or using a hash:

Prawn::Labels.types = {
  "QuarterSheet" => {
    "paper_size" => "A4",
    "columns"    => 2,
    "rows"       => 2
}}

Prawn::Labels.generate("names.pdf", names, :type => "QuarterSheet") do |pdf, name|
  pdf.text name
end

Prawn document options

Prawn::Labels allows passing a hash of document options all the way through to Prawn.

require 'prawn/labels'

names = ["Jordan", "Chris", "Jon", "Mike", "Kelly", "Bob", "Greg"]

Prawn::Labels.generate("names.pdf", names, type: "Avery5160", document: { page_layout: :landscape }) do |pdf, name|
  pdf.text name
end

Other document properties that can be set via this hash can be found in the Prawn Documentation

Contributing

Developers, developers, developers!!

Contributors retain copyright to their work but must agree to release their contributions under the same terms as this project. For details, please see the LICENSE file.

If you would like to help with developing Prawn/Labels, please get in touch! Contact Jordan through GitHub (@jordanbyron), Twitter (@jordan_byron) or open up a ticket.

Submitting a Pull Request - We :heart: pull requests!

1. If an issue doesn’t exist for your bug or feature create one on GitHub Issues.
   • Don’t be afraid to get feedback on your idea before you begin development work. In fact it is encouraged. I promise I don’t bite :wink:
2. Fork the repo and copy it down to your local machine.
3. Run bundle install in the root directory to install all of the dependencies.
4. Create a topic branch (e.g. prawn-2-support).
5. Implement your feature or bug fix.
6. Add documentation for your feature or bug fix.
7. Add tests for your feature or bug fix.
8. Run ruby test/suite.rb. If your changes are not covered, go back to step 6.
9. If your change affects something in this README, please update it.
10. Commit and push your changes.
11. Submit a pull request.

Note about our test suite: It kinda stinks :poop: At the moment the tests just do a quick “Does this code run without raising any errors and at the end does it generate the PDF we expect it to generate” check. Eventually I’d like to add more robust tests, but at this point they are better than no tests! So please keep that in mind when you add your tests or run the whole suite.

To see what the test PDFs look like you can append DEBUG=true to your test run and all generated PDFs will be opened for visual debugging :thumbsup:

Contributors

• Jordan Byron
• David Speake
• Carlo Biedenharn
• Forrest Zeisler
• Jack Twilley
• Ori Pekelman
• Branden Gunn