Emailing A Dynamically Created PDF Through PHP

Question

I've recently created an online template for creating job postings for our website. Everything is all done, it formats correctly in a browser, automatically posts to our website, bla bla bla.

The last piece I'm creating is to give the administrator a few options for distributing the posting to various places (via email) in a consistent, convenient way. I've created a PHP page that creates a PDF doc on the fly, using the TCPDF library. When loading pdf.php?id=X, the page displays a PDF with the content of job posting X. This means I'm never saving the PDF file to the server, just creating it on the fly each time it's called.

But I want to attach this PDF to an email, and send it to various colleges, and internal mailing lists, etc. If I attach the pdf.php?id=x to the email, it doesn't attach the PDF, it attaches what appears to be a blank file, with the above name.

Is it possible to attach this to the email without saving it to the server?

---

Below added based on JM4's response for further trouble shooting. I have put the PDF file creation into a function, and put it into an include file, just to keep things easier to manage.

// random hash necessary to send mixed content
$separator = md5(time());

$eol = PHP_EOL;

// attachment name
$filename = "_Desiredfilename.pdf";

include_once('pdf.php');
// encode data (puts attachment in proper format)
$pdfdoc = job_posting_to_pdf($posting_id);
$attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode($pdfdoc));

///////////HEADERS INFORMATION////////////
// main header (multipart mandatory) message
$headers  = "From: Sender_Name<[email protected]>".$eol;
//$headers .= "Bcc: [email protected]".$eol;
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0".$eol; 
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"".$separator."\"".$eol.$eol; 
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".$eol;
$headers .= "This is a MIME encoded message.".$eol.$eol;

// message
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $message.$eol.$eol;

// attachment
$headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$filename."\"".$eol; 
$headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol;
$headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol;
$headers .= $attachment.$eol.$eol;
$headers .= "--".$separator."--";

//Email message
if(mail('[email protected]', 'test job posting', 'message body goes here', $headers)) {
    echo 'mail sent';
} else {
    echo 'error in email';
}

Here is a stripped down version of pdf.php:

function job_posting_to_pdf($job_id) {
    require_once(ROOT . 'assets/libs/tcpdf/config/lang/eng.php');
    require_once(ROOT . 'assets/libs/tcpdf/tcpdf.php');
    // create new PDF document
    $pdf = new TCPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false); 

    // set document information
    $pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR);
    $pdf->SetAuthor('');
    $pdf->SetTitle('OPL Job Posting');
    $pdf->SetSubject('Job Posting');
    $pdf->SetKeywords('TCPDF, PDF, example, test, guide');

    // remove default header/footer
    $pdf->setPrintHeader(false);
    $pdf->setPrintFooter(false);

    // set default monospaced font
    $pdf->SetDefaultMonospacedFont(PDF_FONT_MONOSPACED);

    //set margins
    $pdf->SetMargins(11, PDF_MARGIN_TOP, 11);

    //set auto page breaks
    $pdf->SetAutoPageBreak(TRUE, PDF_MARGIN_BOTTOM);

    //set image scale factor
    $pdf->setImageScale(PDF_IMAGE_SCALE_RATIO); 

    //set some language-dependent strings
    $pdf->setLanguageArray($l); 

    // ---------------------------------------------------------

    $pdf->SetFont('times', 'I', 9);
    $pdf->AddPage();

    $left_cell_width = 60;
    $row_height = 6;

    $pdf->Image(ROOT . 'assets/gfx/logos/OPL-Logo.jpg', 0, 5, null, 16, null, null, 'N', false, null,'R');
    $pdf->Ln('3');

    if(!$row['internal']) {
        $pdf->Cell(0,0,'This position will be posted internally and externally, concurrently.',0,2,'C');
    } else {
        $pdf->Cell(0,0,'Internal posting only.',0,2,'C');
    }

    //Remainder of actual PDF creation removed to keep things simple


    return $pdf->Output("", "S");
}

Answer 1

If I completely understand what you are asking this is quite simple. I am assuming you already have the PDF generated using something like fdpf or tcpdf. In that case - simply use the following code:

<?php
    // random hash necessary to send mixed content
    $separator = md5(time());

    $eol = PHP_EOL;

    // attachment name
    $filename = "_Desiredfilename.pdf";

    // encode data (puts attachment in proper format)
    $pdfdoc = $pdf->Output("", "S");
    $attachment = chunk_split(base64_encode($pdfdoc));

    ///////////HEADERS INFORMATION////////////
    // main header (multipart mandatory) message
    $headers  = "From: Sender_Name<[email protected]>".$eol;
    $headers .= "Bcc: [email protected]".$eol;
    $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0".$eol; 
    $headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=\"".$separator."\"".$eol.$eol; 
    $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit".$eol;
    $headers .= "This is a MIME encoded message.".$eol.$eol;

    // message
    $headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
    $headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"".$eol;
    $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit".$eol.$eol;
    $headers .= $message.$eol.$eol;

    // attachment
    $headers .= "--".$separator.$eol;
    $headers .= "Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name=\"".$filename."\"".$eol; 
    $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64".$eol;
    $headers .= "Content-Disposition: attachment".$eol.$eol;
    $headers .= $attachment.$eol.$eol;
    $headers .= "--".$separator."--";


    //Email message
    mail($emailto, $emailsubject, $emailbody, $headers);

    ?>