what gem/method to use to generate PDF's from static hosted pages using thoughtbot high-voltage

Question

I have a static set of help pages that I serve in a Rails 3.2 application using Thoughbots high-voltage gem. I'm just using this in a 'vanilla' way, without serving up the html pages via the controller.

Background

I had originally tried to do this myself adapting Michael Hartl's tutorial around static pages - i.e I have a set of static pages with their own controller, and I was trying to create a sub-directory under the static pages view, but could not get my routing to work, so Google searches revealed Thoughbots High-Voltage gem.

Aspiration

What I would like is a recommendation of what gem or method is best to generated PDF files using Thoughtbots High-Voltage gem.

Has anybody done this?

I want to be able to host this on heroku so if there are any gotacha's I'd like to know about these up front.

My current implementation is a basic Rails 3.2 application with the High-Voltage gem installed and a number of views under the pages sub-directory.

• pages/help/users
• pages/help/products
• pages/help/orders

I have images within my html pages, not sure if this causes complications.

EDIT: Added controller based on answer provided as still having issues with wicked_pdf on Rails 3.2.3, ruby 1.9.3-p125 on Lion

class PagesController < HighVoltage::PagesController
def show
  respond_to do |format|
    format.html do
      super
    end
    format.pdf do
      #render :pdf => "pdf_file" # wicked_pdf syntax here
      render :pdf => :id,
             :layout => 'application',
             #:template => 'help/products/product_tolerance.html.erb',
             :template => 'pages/#{:id}.html.erb',
             :show_as_html => params[:debug],
             :footer => {
                :left => "Generated on @now",
                :centre => "Centre",
                :right => "Page # of page(s)"
             }        
      end
    end
  end
end

Routes file contains:

match "/pages/*id" => 'pages#show', :as => :page, :via => :get, :format => false

Should the :format be true? In the controller and in high_voltage?

Answer 1

Override the High Voltage pages controller as described here: https://github.com/thoughtbot/high_voltage#override

Then install either pdfkit or wicked_pdf (html to pdf converters) and hook them into that controller to create PDF versions:

class PagesController < HighVoltage::PagesController
  def show
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html do
        super
      end
      format.pdf do
        render :pdf => "pdf_file" # wicked_pdf syntax here
      end
    end
  end
end