Title: Customizing Output
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Customizing Output

 *  [markyeoj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/markyeoj/)
 * (@markyeoj)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/)
 * Hello,
    I am very interested in using your plugins, however I want to do some
   changes on the presentation of the output, I mean I want to customize the content
   of the pdf, I want the pdf to have a different layout. I am using a custom post
   type with custom fields and I also want to include the data from those fields.
   Is this possible without editing the plugin?
 * [http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-post-to-pdf-enhanced/](http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-post-to-pdf-enhanced/)

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Lewis Rosenthal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lewisr/)
 * (@lewisr)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570695)
 * Well, you can start customizing your output using the new CSS feature introduced
   in version 1.0.1. However, if you wan to add elements to the output, you’ll need
   to query the WP database for them and then add them to the intermediate HTML.
   This involves modifying the core of the plugin and some knowledge of TCPDF.
 * I can’t promise that I’ll add all of what you want, but if you can be a bit more
   specific (there are already plans to include custom fields), I can see how your
   requests might be useful to others and will consider adding features.
 * When you say that you want a different layout, my read on that is that you want
   to rearrange the locations of various elements in the header and footer, and 
   perhaps add a column of custom content. Is this what you are suggesting?
 * Cheers
 * Lewis
 *  [Reyboz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/reyboz/)
 * (@reyboz)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570743)
 * How can i edit for example a “p” style?
 * It’s sufficient to add:
 * `
    p { someproperty:somevalue; }
 * Or i have to read documentation somewhere?
 *  Plugin Author [Lewis Rosenthal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lewisr/)
 * (@lewisr)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570750)
 * In the admin area, under PDF Formatting Options (output tuning), enter your css
   in the Custom CSS box and check the option to apply it to all PDFs (there is 
   currently no facility to apply specific styles to specific pages/posts).
 * Of course, reading [the documentation](http://www.2rosenthals.net/wordpress/help/general-help/wp-post-to-pdf-enhanced/)
   is always a good idea. 😉
 * Cheers
 * Lewis
 *  [Reyboz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/reyboz/)
 * (@reyboz)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570758)
 * Let me explain:
 * In the documentation I did not and I do not find if it works with simple CSS 
   proprerties inserted into directly.. Or… With strange name of tags, for example.
 * From what you say it seems to me that it’s strict normal CSS in that input field,
   and so that paragraphs are “p” (for example), and than that i can style simply
   with:
 * `
    p { someproperty:somevalue; }
 * (for example).
 * I’m right? Thanks. 🙂
 *  [Reyboz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/reyboz/)
 * (@reyboz)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570759)
 * In effect it looked like a very stupid question but I had absolutely no idea 
   how your PDF library create PDFs and so i do not know how you operate the input
   field and how that input field can apply CSS style to a PDF.
 *  Plugin Author [Lewis Rosenthal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lewisr/)
 * (@lewisr)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570769)
 * Just type in the CSS you want to apply, as though you were putting it in a file.
   Here’s an example which will at least show you that the CSS is getting applied:
 *     ```
       html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, font, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td {
       	border: 0;
       	font-family: inherit;
       	font-size: 200% !important;
       	font-style: inherit;
       	font-weight: inherit;
       	margin: 0;
       	outline: 0;
       	padding: 0;
       	vertical-align: baseline;
       }
       ```
   
 * Copy and paste the above into the Custom CSS box and click the box to apply it.
   Save your settings and then open a page on your site and click the PDF button.
   That should give you some idea of what it can do to the output.
 * TCPDF does not actually read an external file for CSS. Instead, the style data
   in the file must be embedded in the HTML fed to it. Storing it in the db is actually
   easier than providing a method for editing the CSS and then saving to an external
   file (though I originally considered doing that).
 * The roadmap for the plugin provides that at some point, we want the shortcode
   to allow for importing an external CSS file. This would/will make it easy to 
   apply a specific set of styles to a single post (or group of them), overriding
   the site-wide CSS stored in the db.
 * If you look at the main class (wp-post-to-pdf-enhanced.php), scan down to line
   365 (version 1.0.2) to see how we inject the CSS into the HTML for handing off
   to TCPDF:
 *     ```
       // Apply global css, if set in config
                   if ($this->options['applyCSS']){
       	        $html .= '<style>'.$this->options['customCss'].'</style>';
       	        }
       ```
   
 * You can see that what we’re doing is just taking the CSS from the database and
   wrapping it in `<style>` tags.
 * I hope this answers your question!
 * Cheers
 * Lewis
 *  Plugin Author [Lewis Rosenthal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lewisr/)
 * (@lewisr)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570770)
 * Oh, and it wasn’t a stupid question; please don’t think that at all. More to 
   the point, my own documentation gives no clear example, so it is I who am at 
   fault for not making this clear. I realize that it’s not all that intuitive. 
   So, what _I_ should do is make a bug report in my tracker to clarify either the
   docs or add a hint to the admin panel to make this a little easier to grasp at
   first glance.
 * Thanks for mentioning it to me!
 * Lewis
 *  Thread Starter [markyeoj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/markyeoj/)
 * (@markyeoj)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570813)
 * Thank you for reply, here’s what I am trying to do.
    A 3 pages PDF, I want to
   divide the post’s contents into 3 pages like for example the featured image will
   be the first page. The main content in 2nd page, and the custom fields’ data 
   in the 3rd page.
 *  [Reyboz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/reyboz/)
 * (@reyboz)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570816)
 * (Thaks Lewis. I’ll try to style the body of the article simply with “body” and“
   p”. Have a nice day.)
 *  Plugin Author [Lewis Rosenthal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lewisr/)
 * (@lewisr)
 * [12 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4570817)
 * You might try to start your content with the wpptopdf_break shortcode. This should
   put the page break before the text, but after the featured image. Insert another
   one at the end of the content, and that should give you another page after. That
   said, if your custom fields show up in your content and you want to move them
   to the last page in the PDF, that’s a taller order. 🙂
 * Likewise, adding custom fields to the PDF can be done manually (search the threads
   here, you’ll find one solution to this), but it requires hacking some of the 
   core of the plugin, though I do want to add this ability at some point.
 * Cheers, and good luck. Please let us know how you make out!
 * Lewis
 *  Plugin Author [Lewis Rosenthal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lewisr/)
 * (@lewisr)
 * [12 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4571004)
 * Any further issue with this, or is the current CSS box working for you?
 * If no more issues, I’d like to close this as resolved, even though the OP has
   not followed up (though I still have not addressed the custom fields issue).
 * Cheers
 * Lewis

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

The topic ‘Customizing Output’ is closed to new replies.

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 * 11 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Lewis Rosenthal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lewisr/)
 * Last activity: [12 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/customizing-output/#post-4571004)
 * Status: not resolved