Create and Email PDF files from Drupal Webforms

This tutorial shows how to create a high-resolution PDF file from a Drupal webform. The same basic concept can be used to create PDF files from nodes as well - you just won't need the Webform Rules module.

The 4 steps in summary are:

1. Install the required modules and libraries
2. Create a Webform
3. Create a View to convert the Webform to a PDF.
4. Create a Rule to save the PDF to the server, and email it if you want.

1. Requirements for this project:

• Have Drupal 7 and these modules installed: Views, Rules, Webform 4 (must be 4 for the tokens), Webform Rules,  Views PDF ,  jQuery Update
• These libraries are needed for Views PDF: TCPDF Version 5 or greater,  FPDI , FPDF_TPL . Here's my structure and versions:

• • sites/all/libraries/tcpdf that contains the contents of tcpdf-6.0.020.zip
  • sites/all/libraries/fpdi that contains the contents of FPDI-1.4.4.zip and  FPDF_TPL-1.2.3.zip . For these, I recommend creating the fpdi directory first and putting  the zips in there before unzipping - they both contain loose files.
• To have the PDF emailed automatically after it's created, you'll need Mimemail (and its Mimemail Action submodule) and  Mailsystem

2. Create the Webform

Create a webform and add the fields that you need.

3. Create the View

Create a new view:

• On the first screen, choose Show Webform submissions
• Uncheck Create a page and Create a block
• Click Continue & Edit

Add a contextual filter so that each PDF shows only that webform's data:

• Under Contextual Filters in the right column (click the word "Advanced" if you don't see this), add a "Webform submissions: Sid" filter. 
• Click Apply on the screen "Configure contextual filter" (The only configuration I use here is ' When the filter value is not in the URL: Show "Page not found"')

• Under Fields, click Add
• Use the Filter to find Webform Submission Data:Value
• In the form that comes up, find the webform you wish to use via the Webform node field
• Once the Webform node is selected, a new box appears called Component data, which is a select list showing all the webform fields available on that webform
• Choose the first field you want to display, and the Display format you want for it
• Add the rest of the webform fields by repeating the above steps for each field

Also: Under pager, choose "display all items" and you may want to remove any Sort and Filter items.

Add the PDF display:

• Under Displays, add a PDF Page
• Under PDF Settings: Path, add a path (which is required, but we're not using it - we'll be setting the path via a Rule - so I believe you can add any path you want here. To be safe, a path like "/ sites/default/files/viewspdf/%/webform.pdf" will replace the percent symbol with each webform submission's ID, giving it a unique path.)
• Under PDF Settings: PDF Page Settings , configure the page size, orientation and margins
• Under PDF Settings: PDF Fonts Settings , configure the font
• Under PDF Settings: PDF Template Settings, adding a background template with the upload button will store template files in /sites/default/files/views_pdf_templates. Once there, you can choose a template to be placed in different areas of your PDF. For this example, we'll upload a high-resolution PDF of 8.5x11 corporate letterhead. 
• Now under Format: Show: PDF FIelds, click Settings. 
  • You'll see clickable sections for each of the webform fields you added. 
  • By default, they'll print sequentially and vertically. If you need any different placement, configure it here. (warning - you may need to do a lot of testing to get it right!) 
  • I used the background uploaded in the previous step by choosing it under Template PDF.