Create a PDF document from an Azure DevOps Wiki

#automation #azure #devops #azuredevops

Azure DevOps Wiki

When working on Azure DevOps or GitHub, we have special needs when it comes to wiki's and documentation. Specifically, we often have our documentation sit next to our source code in our repos, allowing us to version our documentation along with our source code. This developer-specific workflow is totally supported by Azure DevOps Wiki. What is great about using the Azure DevOps wiki is that similarly how teams can share and collaborate on a projects source code the same team, using the same workflow can also share and collaborate on a projects documentation through its Wiki. Documentation such as release notes, manuals and any sort of documentation that needs to accompany a project can be created in a Wiki. The documentation is then also kept in source control and in a central place that a team can access and collaborate on.

But this might not be suitable or possible at all times in all use cases, for example to see the DevOps wiki a person must have access to the DevOps Project and Wiki. Say for example someone who is in a different project or in a management role that does not have access to the DevOps project or wiki would like to see a products release notes or maybe some sort of documentation on the project in a document, this makes things a bit more tricky. So today I will share with you how you can convert your DevOps or GitHub wiki into a PDF document. We will also look at how we can create a pipeline that will automatically generate a new "Wiki PDF" document when required.

DevOps Wiki PDF Export Task

WIKI PDF Export Tasks is a DevOps extension that can be installed into your DevOps Organisation from the Azure DevOps marketplace, simply put it is an Azure Pipelines extension that can give teams another way to present their Wiki as a PDF document, whether it be an export of a whole WIKI or just a single page.

The extension is based on a tool called AzureDevOps.WikiPDFExport by Max Melcher that allows you to export a whole WIKI (or a single file) as a PDF. The tool performs the following tasks:

Clone a WIKI Repo
Run the command line tool passing in a path to the root of the cloned wiki repo
The .order file is read
A PDF is generated

Wiki to PDF Pipeline

After installing WIKI PDF Export Tasks in your Devops Organisation. Navigate to your Wiki repository.

In this tutorial I am using a repo on my project called: Devops.Wiki published as my project wiki.

Under my repo I then created a new folder/path called: .pipelines

In this path we will create our YAML pipeline called wiki-to-pdf.yml with the following code:



# code/wiki-to-pdf.yml

name: Wiki-To-PDF-$(Rev:rr)
trigger: none

stages:
  - stage: wiki_export
    displayName: Wiki Export

    jobs:
      - job: wiki_to_pdf
        displayName: Wiki To PDF
        pool:
          vmImage: windows-latest

        steps:
          - task: UseDotNet@2
            displayName: 'Use .NET Core sdk'
            inputs:
              packageType: 'sdk'
              version: '6.0.x'
              includePreviewVersions: true

          - task: richardfennellBM.BM-VSTS-WikiPDFExport-Tasks.WikiPDFExportTask.WikiPdfExportTask@2
            displayName: 'Export a private Azure DevOps WIKI'
            inputs:
              cloneRepo: true
              repo: 'https://dev.azure.com/magiconionM/Devto_Blog_Demos/_git/DevOps.Wiki'
              useAgentToken: true
              localpath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/DevOpsWiki'
              outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/PDF/DevOpsWiki.pdf'

          - task: PublishPipelineArtifact@1
            displayName: 'Publish wiki export to Azure Pipeline'
            inputs:
              targetPath: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/PDF'
              artifactName: DevOpsWiki

We can then set up this pipeline and trigger it manually, once the pipeline has completed it will generate an artifact that contains the PDF document.

Here is an example PDF export.

Other Examples

Note on our pipeline the task used is specifically to export a private Azure DevOps WIKI:



- task: richardfennellBM.BM-VSTS-WikiPDFExport-Tasks.WikiPDFExportTask.WikiPdfExportTask@2
  displayName: 'Export a private Azure DevOps WIKI'
  inputs:
    cloneRepo: true
    repo: 'https://dev.azure.com/magiconionM/Devto_Blog_Demos/_git/DevOps.Wiki'
    useAgentToken: true
    localpath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/DevOpsWiki'
    outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/PDF/DevOpsWiki.pdf'

Here are two more examples. Export a Single File:



- task: richardfennellBM.BM-VSTS-WikiPDFExport-Tasks.WikiPDFExportTask.WikiPdfExportTask@2
  displayName: 'Export Single File'
  inputs:
    cloneRepo: false
    usePreRelease: false
    localpath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
    singleFile: 'release_notes.md'
    outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/PDF/ReleaseNotes.pdf'

Export a public GitHub WIKI:



- task: richardfennellBM.BM-VSTS-WikiPDFExport-Tasks.WikiPDFExportTask.WikiPdfExportTask@2
  displayName: 'Export a public GitHub WIKI'
  inputs:
    cloneRepo: true
    repo: 'https://github.com/rfennell/AzurePipelines.wiki.git'
    useAgentToken: false
    localpath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\GitHubRepo'
    outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)\PDF\GitHubWiki.pdf'

NOTE: This blog post has been updated to reflect the changes in V2 of the task/extension. The AzureDevOps.WikiPDFExport tool since 4.0.0 is .NET6 based. Hence .NET6 must be installed on the agent.

This can easily be done by using the following build pipeline task as shown on the yaml config, before the extension is called.



# code/wiki-to-pdf.yml#L15-L20

- task: UseDotNet@2
  displayName: 'Use .NET Core sdk'
  inputs:
    packageType: 'sdk'
    version: '6.0.x'
    includePreviewVersions: true