I'm looking for a way to compile / join Drupal nodes (by type) into a single document, which in turn is printable -- a PDF would be nice but not necessary -- just printable. For context I've used Drupal (5.x) to make on online manual, with each node serving as a section. I'd like to be able for users to print out all the nodes at a single go (as opposed to page by page) -- thereby requiring a single doc. I'm trying to avoid having to do a lot of back end manipulation / PHP scripting to call each node in the order I want. Ideally something would compile all nodes of X type in the order in which they are listed in a menu or perhaps a master view. Anyway, couldn't find an existing module for this, but maybe there is a trick. Thanks in advance for the assistance.

Comments

WorldFallz’s picture

I managed to get this working by grouping the nodes that need to print/pdf together into a book and using the http://drupal.org/project/print module. With that module, a book will string together all the downstream pages for printing/pdfing. AFAIK, only the D6 version natively supports PDF, but with a nice print optimized version, you can always create a client-side pdf with cutepdf or something similar.

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kxerc’s picture

Thanks much for the suggestion. Looks like the only reasonable solution. Unfortunate that we have dozens upon dozens of pages / nodes to add to a book outline. But, this'll work. Thanks!

rdrunner’s picture

I have a similar question. I have already used books - but multiples books in order to have the book navigation block be the side navigation. If I collapse all the nodes into a single book, it might print well (I've installed print) but I lose the functionality of book navigation (which is perfect for my "only an instruction manual" site).

Any assistance greatly appreciated!

p.s. I have 16 books in my manual.
rdrunner

adam_b’s picture

It has the option to output a full node (rather than the usual title, teaser, etc), so you could use this to generate the content for as many nodes as you allow in that view.

rdrunner’s picture

As a workaround, I installed the PDF module - I'm going to generate the pdf pages and then combine them into a single pdf which I will post. It won't be dynamic, but is easier than any alternative I've found.