TCPDF "Undefined index: cols" when using tables in view

Question

I'm using CakePHP 1.3 to make an online application system. I try to print a PDF document using TCPDF based on a view.

I use the code

$this->writeHTML($this->render('print') ) 

in my print controller.

The problem is that I have this

undefined index : cols

error output to the screen. What could have gone wrong?

Answer 1

TCPDF “Undefined index: cols” when using tables in view

In some cases you may forget the closing tag or define the wrong tag, resulting in this error. This is because the tcpdf package does not allow wrong or incomplete html. I suggest that you should verify the code first. You may be missing something in your html?

Otherwise swith to using simple html <table> with <tr> and <td>

Answer 2

I run into the same problem today (even though I am not using CakePHP), and all it took to fix this problem was to add a valid <thead> element to every table that I was embedding. Apparently, TCPDF parses the <thead> element to determine the number of columns in a table when it outputs tables in PDF.

Also, I would recommend to generally check if your HTML is valid if some other errors keep occurring.

I hope this helps.