Attach PDF to Chatter Feed Item in Salesforce

Generating PDFs in Salesforce is pretty straight forward using the standard Visualforce page functionality of renderAs=pdf. Attaching those PDFs to a chatter post and having them render correctly as PDFs can be a little tricky. Below I have created a very simple Visualforce page and controller to demonstrate this functionality. (Also this solution has been tested and works in the three major browsers: Chrome, Firefox and IE)

pdfGenerator Visualforce Page

<apex:pagecontroller="pdfGenerator">

  <apex:form>

    <apex:outputPanel id="theOP">

      <apex:pageBlock title="Chatter Account PDFs">

        <apex:pageBlockSectioncolumns="1">

          <apex:pageBlockSectionItem>

            <apex:outputLabelvalue="PDF Name"/>

            <apex:inputTextvalue="{!chatterFileName}"/> 

          </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>

          <apex:pageBlockSectionItem>

            <apex:outputLabelvalue="Chatter Message"/>

            <apex:inputTextAreavalue="{!chatterMsg}"/>

          </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>

          <apex:pageBlockSectionItem rendered="{!showNewLink}">   

            <apex:outputLabel value="Chatter Link" style="color:green;" />

            <apex:outputLink value="/{!newLink}" target="_blank">Chatter Post</apex:outputLink>

          </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>

        </apex:pageBlockSection>

        <apex:pageBlockButtons location="bottom"> 

          <apex:commandButtonvalue="Create PDF and Share to Chatter" action="{!share}"        reRender="theOP"/>

        </apex:pageBlockButtons>

      </apex:pageBlock>

    </apex:outputPanel>

  </apex:form>

</apex:page>

pdfGenerator Controller

public with sharing class pdfGenerator {

  public string chatterMsg {get;set;}

  public string chatterFileName {get;set;}

  public string newLink {get;set;}

  public boolean showNewLink {get;set;}

  public pdfGenerator()  {

    showNewLink = false;

  }

  public string queryAccount()  {

    string a = [SELECT Id, Name 

                    FROM Account 

                    WHERE Name = 'Test Account'].Id;

    return a;

  }

/* -------------------------

PDF Generate / and post to chatter

------------------------- */

  public PageReference share()  {

    // create pdf

    PageReference pdf = Page.accountPDF;

    pdf.getParameters().put('accountId', queryAccount());

    Blob body;

    body = pdf.getContent();

    // post to chatter

    FeedItem post = newFeedItem();

    post.ParentId = '0F9i0000000Cjqw'; // nickforce chatter group id

    post.Body = chatterMsg;

    post.Type = 'ContentPost';

    post.ContentData = body;

    //**you must include '.pdf' in the file name or it will not be recognized as a pdf file  

    post.ContentFileName = chatterFileName + '.pdf';

    insert post;

    newLink = post.Id;

    showNewLink = true;

    return null;

  }

}

And here is the very simple Visualforce page rendered as a PDF.

PDF Visualforce Page

<apex:page standardController="Account" renderAs="pdf">

<h1>Account: {!Account.Name}</h1>

</apex:page>