UIMarkupTextPrintFormatter never renders base64 images

Question

Im creating a pdf file out of html content in swift 3.0:

/**
 *
 */
func exportHtmlContentToPDF(HTMLContent: String, filePath: String) {
    // let webView = UIWebView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 694, height: 603));

    // webView.loadHTMLString(HTMLContent, baseURL: nil);

    let pdfPrinter = PDFPrinter();
    let printFormatter = UIMarkupTextPrintFormatter(markupText: HTMLContent);
    // let printFormatter = webView.viewPrintFormatter();

    pdfPrinter.addPrintFormatter(printFormatter, startingAtPageAt: 0);

    let pdfData = self.drawPDFUsingPrintPageRenderer(printPageRenderer: pdfPrinter);

    pdfData?.write(toFile: filePath, atomically: true);
}

/**
 *
 */
func drawPDFUsingPrintPageRenderer(printPageRenderer: UIPrintPageRenderer) -> NSData! {
    let data = NSMutableData();

    UIGraphicsBeginPDFContextToData(data, CGRect.zero, nil);

    printPageRenderer.prepare(forDrawingPages: NSMakeRange(0, printPageRenderer.numberOfPages));

    let bounds = UIGraphicsGetPDFContextBounds();

    for i in 0...(printPageRenderer.numberOfPages - 1) {
        UIGraphicsBeginPDFPage();

        printPageRenderer.drawPage(at: i, in: bounds);
    }

    UIGraphicsEndPDFContext();

    return data;
}

Everything is rendered fine except my base64 encoded images. The HTML content itself in a webview or inside safari or chrome browser is presented correctly and is showing all images correctly. But the images are never rendered into the pdf.

Why are the images not rendered and how can I get them to be rendered?

Answer 1

I found the solution!

The export to PDF happens before the rendering process is finished. If you put in a very small picture it is showing up in the PDF. If the picture is too big the rendering process takes too much time but the PDF export isnt waiting for the rendering to finish.

So what I did to make it work is the following:

Before I export to PDF I show the Result of the HTML in a WebView. The WebView is rendering everything correctly and now when I press on export to PDF the PDF is showing up correctly with all images inside.

So I guess this is a huge lag that there is no way to tell the PDF Exporter to wait for the rendering process to finish.