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c++qtpdfqtextbrowser

How to print multiple instances of QTextBrowser into one PDF file?

the QT application I'm working on comes with a tutorial. Each chapter is a stand-alone HTML file, each file can span multiple pages. Now I want to print them into one single PDF file (with page numbers).

My naive approach was this, but it's wrong:

#include <QApplication>
#include <QPrinter>
#include <QTextBrowser>
#include <QUrl>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  QApplication app(argc, argv);

  QPrinter printer;
  printer.setOutputFormat(QPrinter::PdfFormat);
  printer.setOutputFileName("/tmp/test.pdf");

  QTextBrowser *tp = new QTextBrowser();

  tp->setSource(QUrl("qrc:///help/tutorial_item_1.html"));
  tp->print(&printer);

  tp->setSource(QUrl("qrc:///help/tutorial_item_2.html"));
  tp->print(&printer);

  tp->setSource(QUrl("qrc:///help/tutorial_item_3.html"));
  tp->print(&printer);

  // etc...
}

However, this will restart the printer on each print() call, starting with a new PDF file, overwriting the old one.

What is a simple solution to print all HTML into one PDF file, using QT?

Solution

  • Developping on your "naive approach", I could print concatenated html files by appending several pages to a parent QTextEdit. It would probably also work utilizing a second QTextBrowser instead.

      // ...
  QTextBrowser *tp = new QTextBrowser();
  QTextEdit te;

  tp->setSource(QUrl("qrc:///help/tutorial_item_1.html"));
  te.append(tp->toHtml());

  tp->setSource(QUrl("qrc:///help/tutorial_item_2.html"));
  te.append(tp->toHtml());

  te.print(&printer);

  // ...