Unfortunately: it looks like an externally refernced image file in a HTML file will NOT be included in a HTMLTOPDF (or at least that's what my tests so far show).

So : you would have to make the sure QR code image is available to PRPC as Static Content, or possibly a in-memory (probably rendered as base64 'inline' image data in a HTML file) byte-array of the JPG (etc) image data.

Despite my test not working; I ended up creating a simple (and very badly written - needs quite a bit doing to it, to make it 'safe') Servlet using ZXING library to generate a dynamic QR code.

This Servlet works: and creates a dynamic Image File based on the Servlet Parameters; but as I say , including a reference to the IMG in a PRPC HTML Rule and then converting that Rule does NOT show the image in the resultant PDF (I found at least).

But the code snippets maybe useful to you anyway: perhaps you want to try converting the code into a PRPC Function/Activity here ? (there is only one required third-party JAR used, here's it's Maven Coordinates:

com.google.zxing | core | 2.2

(I used an older version here, there are much newer versions available as well).

Here's the method used to generate the QR Code given some input text, and an image width/height, mostly stolen , erm I mean , borrowed code from around the web:

public static BufferedImage encodeToQrCode(final String text, final int width, final int height)  {
        QRCodeWriter writer = new QRCodeWriter();
        BitMatrix matrix = null;
        try {
            matrix = writer.encode(text, BarcodeFormat.QR_CODE, width, height);
        } catch (WriterException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }

        BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(width, height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
        image.createGraphics();

        Graphics2D graphics = (Graphics2D) image.getGraphics();
        graphics.setColor(Color.YELLOW);
        graphics.fillRect(0, 0, width, height);
        graphics.setColor(Color.BLUE);

        for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) {
            for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) {
                if (matrix.get(x, y) == true) {
                    graphics.fillRect(x, y, 1, 1);
                }
            }
        }
        return image;
    }

And here's the method in the Servlet that delivers the Image to a HTTP client (but if you plan to implement the above in PRPC, you won't need most of this - I include it only because it deals a bit with converting the BufferedImage into bytes, which you probably will need to whatever method you end up using).

protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
            throws ServletException, IOException {
       
        // TBD: guard against missing/bad parameters.
        String text=request.getParameter("t");
        int width=Integer.parseInt( request.getParameter("w") );
        int height=Integer.parseInt( request.getParameter("h") );
        String format=request.getParameter("f");
      
        BufferedImage image=encodeToQrCode(text, width, height); // sloppy; what happens if the image creation fails ?
       
        BufferedOutputStream sbos=null;
        ByteArrayOutputStream bos=null;
        try {
            bos=new ByteArrayOutputStream();
            sbos = new BufferedOutputStream(response.getOutputStream());
           
            ImageIO.write(image, format, bos);
           
            String MimeType=String.format("image/%s", format); // this is slapdash: should be 'image/jpeg', not 'image/jpg' for instance
            response.setContentType(MimeType);
            response.setContentLength( bos.size() );
           
            sbos.write(bos.toByteArray());

        } finally {
            bos.close();
            sbos.close();

        }
    }

I'll attach my Maven Project (WAR/Web Project) as well here, as well as a 'WAR' file (which you should be able to deploy and use to see it working, even though it probably won't help you here).

Actually; as I write this; possibly you could still use this approach (separate WAR to generate the QR): and still use PRPC with a HTTP Rule to fetch the data and then stuff it into a PRPC Property, then convert that into base64, and then use that base64 as an inline image ? dunno (I haven't tested what HTMLTOPDF does with inline base64 images).

Hi Chungliang,

Ok: this does NOT work yet: but I'll share what I have so far.

In order to even have a chance of placing a QR code on a (server-generated) file such as a PDF or EXCEL file; you'll need to generate the QR code on the server-side (rather than in Javascript).

I previously said the Google's ZXing might be a decent way of doing this.

Here's some (as I say, incomplete) notes about how to go about doing this:

1. Get hold of the ZXing 'core' JAR (you can change to a newer version if you want):

It is available from the Maven Repos here (just use a browser to download it): https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/google/zxing/core/2.2/core-2.2.jar

2. Then you can import the JAR into PRPC using the following steps:

Designer Studio | Distribution | Import

Then (as indicated in the screenshot above) - you will need to restart PRPC.

Once you have rebooted, you should then have access to the Google ZXing library; and you can create an Activity like this:

Here's the Java Code from the Java Step above:

com.google.zxing.qrcode.QRCodeWriter writer = new com.google.zxing.qrcode.QRCodeWriter();
com.google.zxing.common.BitMatrix matrix = null;

try {
            matrix = writer.encode(text, com.google.zxing.BarcodeFormat.QR_CODE, width, height);
        }
catch (com.google.zxing.WriterException e) { throw new PRRuntimeException(e); }

java.awt.image.BufferedImage image = new java.awt.image.BufferedImage(width, height, java.awt.image.BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
image.createGraphics();

java.awt.Graphics2D graphics = (java.awt.Graphics2D) image.getGraphics();
graphics.setColor(java.awt.Color.YELLOW);
graphics.fillRect(0, 0, width, height);
graphics.setColor(java.awt.Color.BLUE);

for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) {
            for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) {
                if (matrix.get(x, y) == true) {
                    graphics.fillRect(x, y, 1, 1);
                }
            }
}

Now , this Activity runs without error, but I haven't yet done anything with the resultant BufferedImage, so nothing of interest happens when you run it !

The next stage is to convert that BufferedImage into a JPG/GIF/PNG image format ; but even after doing that - I'm not sure on the best way of saving this Image into PRPC (so that it can be subseqeuently embedded into a HTML, which could be converted to a PDF (say) ).....

Maybe somebody else has some ideas on doing that ?

Slight improvement: now writing out the QR code (it's currently fixed as 'png') to a file on the PRPC 'ServiceExport' directory; error-checking and some logic is dubious at the moment; but works.

Java step modified as follows:

com.google.zxing.qrcode.QRCodeWriter writer = new com.google.zxing.qrcode.QRCodeWriter();
 com.google.zxing.common.BitMatrix matrix = null;

try {
             matrix = writer.encode(text, com.google.zxing.BarcodeFormat.QR_CODE, width, height);
         }
 catch (com.google.zxing.WriterException e) { throw new PRRuntimeException(e); }

java.awt.image.BufferedImage image = new java.awt.image.BufferedImage(width, height, java.awt.image.BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
 image.createGraphics();

java.awt.Graphics2D graphics = (java.awt.Graphics2D) image.getGraphics();
 graphics.setColor(java.awt.Color.YELLOW);
 graphics.fillRect(0, 0, width, height);
 graphics.setColor(java.awt.Color.BLUE);

for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) {
             for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) {
                 if (matrix.get(x, y) == true) {
                     graphics.fillRect(x, y, 1, 1);
                 }
             }
 }

try {
PRFile prFile=new PRFile( filename );
PROutputStream pros=new PROutputStream( prFile );
javax.imageio.ImageIO.write(image, "png", pros );
pros.close();

}
catch(Exception e) { throw new PRRuntimeException(e); }

The file will be created on the PRPC backend as:

[...]/PegaTemp/StaticContent/global/ServiceExport/<text of qr code>.png

And this locationis available as a URL (but I haven't encoded that into the Activity yet)