Generate PDF

[krystof78]

Hi guys,

 

I would like to know if there is a way to generate pdf when clicking on a link. In fact, I would like to be able to click on a link and generate a pdf file with information from my database, say a profile of a client for example or an invoice.

 

I was able to generate a pdf using a basic tutorial. Here is the code:

<?php
$mypdf = PDF_new();
PDF_open_file($mypdf, "");
PDF_begin_page($mypdf, 595, 842);
$myfont = PDF_findfont($mypdf, "Times-Roman", "host", 0);
PDF_setfont($mypdf, $myfont, 10);
PDF_show_xy($mypdf, "Sample PDF, constructed by PHP in real-time.", 50, 750);
PDF_show_xy($mypdf, "Made with the PDF libraries for PHP.", 50, 730);
PDF_end_page($mypdf);
PDF_close($mypdf);

$mybuf = PDF_get_buffer($mypdf);
$mylen = strlen($mybuf);
header("Content-type: application/pdf");
header("Content-Length: $mylen");
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=gen01.pdf");
print $mybuf;

PDF_delete($mypdf);
?>

 

But

1) it's seems to be pretty hard to have something that looks nice if I have to specify each item it location with X and Y

2) I have in the middle of the page: www.pdflib.com. I guess I have to pay for a licence to get rid of that but I went to the website and it's kind of expensive for me.

 

Do you know how an easier way to generate a pdf from my website and without having this "www.pdflib.com"? Is there another script out there or another lib?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

[Mchl]

www.fpdf.org/

www.tcpdf.org/

http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.pdf.html

 

 

[rlelek]

I can vouch for FPDF - a pleasure to work with!

 

The documentation does a great job of explaining it, though you'll have to put your mind into "graph" mode as the layout usually involves setting an X/Y Coordinate and then having the library do what you need it to do.

[Mchl]

FPDF might not be the best choice. It's pretty outdated right now, does not support Unicode, not really easy to add functionality.

I agree though that it does it's job well (I use it myself in one of my projects).

[krystof78]

I tried FPDF, but when I try the demo in tuto1 on my computer, it downloads the tot1.php instead of creating the pdf...

 

Do I have to install something else or to configure something specific to make it work?

[Mchl]

Do you have it within your webserver's document root?

[krystof78]

Well, I've copied all the files I've downloaded in a folder accessible from my local sever... Should I put some of the files somewhere else?

[Mchl]

I don't recall anything like that, but it's been some time since I installed FPDF from scratch.

Ask on their forums. There's usually someone to answer pretty quick.

[krystof78]

Ok thanks, I am going to do that...