Simple Machines Community Forum

SMF Support => SMF 1.1.x Support => Topic started by: nax on August 23, 2009, 10:03:52 AM

Title: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: nax on August 23, 2009, 10:03:52 AM
Our Database is getting rather large as several of our topics are effectively chat threads.  For example an archive of one of these topics will be 1000 pages of 15 posts per page.  We don't want to simply delete these from the system as they contain some important items.  What we are looking for is a way to effectively "print" one of these large topics in it's entirety to create a PDF document that members can download on request allowing us to delete the relative records from the database.

Anyone any idea how this can be achieved so that Avatars, embeded pictures etc are included exactly as seen on the screen?  The current print option is just text.
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: Arantor on August 24, 2009, 07:14:44 AM
In theory you could modify the print template to cover this, but a simpler solution - since it won't be an everyday occurrance - might be to throw the forum into maintenance mode, adjust the number of posts per page to a very large number, then browse to that thread, and just a regular print (then putting it all back to defaults after!!)
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: nax on February 04, 2010, 05:17:06 AM
This does not work, even if I set the number of post per page to 1000 the system resets itself to 20. :(
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: JimM on March 02, 2010, 08:07:37 PM
Unfortunately I am not aware of anything that you can use to export the contents to a pdf like you are asking for.  My suggestion would be to spend some time on Google and see if this has been done before. 
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: Le-St on January 31, 2015, 08:09:43 AM
The same question. How to print/export a large topic to PDF, including all pictures etc.

I wonder if after 5 years there is a simple solution for this simple task.

Any suggestions are welcome.
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: Kindred on January 31, 2015, 08:18:34 AM
no...   there is no real solution to this because it is not something that is frequently asked...

actually, in 10 years of this product being around, I think this has now been asked twice...
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: Le-St on January 31, 2015, 09:31:22 AM
Thanks for the immediate answer.

Archiving pages, articles, posts, topics... in PDF format is now so popular and convenient that the absence of this function really surprises me.

Well, there is no problem to print to PDF a topic with hundred pages, but unfortunately - without pictures, which in my case are substantially important. Maybe there is a trick to add them?
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: Kindred on January 31, 2015, 10:53:43 AM
Not sure why you think is it "so popular"... nor is it really convenient, IMO... I have actually seen every business site I deal with moving AWAY from that...

however...  to address your question -- you would have to edit the printtopic template so that it included pics
Title: Re: Printing/exporting large topic to pdf
Post by: Arantor on February 01, 2015, 01:53:47 PM
It has been asked more than that, and adjusting the print-topic code isn't really ideal to support pictures, depending on what kind of pictures (you can already get img tags added in, but attachments is much harder)

It's also heavyweight on a system :(