Rendering Static file in Wkhtmltopdf in Django - django

Question

I have followed too many answers to this but I need some more explanation on this topic as I want to know the root cause for it.
I am trying to create pdf using wkhtmltopdf.
This is my setting files look like :
Settings.py
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
And the URL to reference static file is :
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static '/css/template_pdf.css' %}" type="text/css" />
Or
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/template_pdf.css" type="text/css" />
or
<link rel="stylesheet" href="file:///static/css/template_pdf.css" type="text/css" />
or
I used this too:
https://gist.github.com/renyi/f02b4322590e9288ac679545df4748d3
and provided url as :
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='{{ STATIC_URL }}static/css/template_pdf.css' />
But the issue I understood is, all of the above except last one works perfectly while rendering view :
def view_pdf(request):
"""View function for home page of site."""
context= {'title': 'Hello World!'}
# Render the HTML template index.html with the data in the context variable
return render(request, 'pdf/quotation.html', context=context)
But for creating pdf using wkhtmltopdf it specifically needs the url to be specified like :
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http:localhost:8000/static/css/template_pdf.css" type="text/css" />
I know I am missing something in the static file. But I want to know why it works with rendering template but not with Generating pdf using wkhtmltopdf.
I dont think it is good idea to put directly domain name inside the referencing url.
A detailed solution for this would be helpful as I am very new to django.
I tried follow this answer too but nothing worked : Django wkhtmltopdf don't reading static files

Answer 1

in your settings.py
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
WKHTMLTOPDF_CMD = '/usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf'
to render static files in your template django provide static tag. You can use this as
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static '/css/template_pdf.css' %}" type="text/css" />
Also make sure you have this included in your urls.py
from django.conf import settings
if settings.DEBUG:
from django.conf.urls.static import static
urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)
Don't forget to run collectstatic command in the end

Answer 2

I added http://localhost:8000 explicitly in my template when running in debug mode:
In the template:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{% if debug %}http://localhost:8000{% endif %}{% static '/css/template_pdf.css' %}" type="text/css" />
And I added the debug to the context:
from django.conf import settings
def view_pdf(request):
"""View function for home page of site."""
context= {
'debug': settings.DEBUG,
'title': 'Hello World!'
}
# Render the HTML template index.html with the data in the context variable
return render(request, 'pdf/quotation.html', context=context)