Create PDF documents Online with TCPDF

Why TCPDF and not some other PHP class?
TCPDF is based on the FPDF class, a very stable project written for PHP4. Since several years has TCPDF much more features than FPDF and is written for PHP5 (there is also a PHP4 version). The TCPDF has also some great documentation and of course examples for all important PDF jobs like:
WriteHTML and RTL support, Multiple columns, JavaScript and Forms, Bookmarks (Table of Content), Multicell complex alignment, Barcodes, Set PDF viewer display preferences, EPS/AI vectorial images and many more.
In this tutorial we create a PDF invoice including header logo, the invoice rows, an information box and some footer row.
In our code we include some PHP files, next we’ve created a small class extension to have a custom header/footer and some handy method which creates a text box.

require_once('tcpdf/config/lang/eng.php');
require_once('tcpdf/tcpdf.php');
 
class MYPDF extends TCPDF {
	public function Header() {
		$this->setJPEGQuality(90);
		$this->Image('logo.png', 120, 10, 75, 0, 'PNG', 'http://www.finalwebsites.com');
 
	}
	public function Footer() {
		$this->SetY(-15);
		$this->SetFont(PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN, 'I', 8);
		$this->Cell(0, 10, 'finalwebsites.com - PHP Script Resource, PHP classes and code for web developer', 0, false, 'C');
	}
	public function CreateTextBox($textval, $x = 0, $y, $width = 0, $height = 10, $fontsize = 10, $fontstyle = '', $align = 'L') {
		$this->SetXY($x+20, $y); // 20 = margin left
		$this->SetFont(PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN, $fontstyle, $fontsize);
		$this->Cell($width, $height, $textval, 0, false, $align);
	}
}
The header method has only two functions, one sets the image quality and the second will place an image (including hyperlink) on a defined place (x=120, Y=10, width=75). All coordinates are measured in Millimeters and the height for the image is calculated by the script. Inside the footer method we’re using some basic TCPDF methods to define the position, the font/style and the cell with the footer text. The third method (CreateTextBox) is just a group of TCPDF functions which makes it easier to place some text box into the PDF document. Note, the constant variable PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN is defined inside the TCPDF config file, which is located inside the config directory.

The invoice header
The following code will create a TCPDF object with default values, the PDF meta data gets defined (author, title, etc.), a page is added and the invoice header with information is created using our custom text box method.

// create a PDF object

$pdf = new MYPDF(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);


// set document (meta) information

$pdf->SetCreator(PDF_CREATOR);

$pdf->SetAuthor('Olaf Lederer');

$pdf->SetTitle('TCPDF Example');

$pdf->SetSubject('TCPDF Tutorial');

$pdf->SetKeywords('TCPDF, PDF, example, tutorial');


// add a page

$pdf->AddPage();


// create address box

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Customer name Inc.', 0, 55, 80, 10, 10, 'B');

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Mr. Tom Cat', 0, 60, 80, 10, 10);

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Street address', 0, 65, 80, 10, 10);

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Zip, city name', 0, 70, 80, 10, 10);


// invoice title / number

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Invoice #201012345', 0, 90, 120, 20, 16);


// date, order ref

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Date: '.date('Y-m-d'), 0, 100, 0, 10, 10, '', 'R');

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Order ref.: #6765765', 0, 105, 0, 10, 10, '', 'R');

Invoice Rows

Now we create the information about the products we like put into the PDF invoice. First we create some headers and than we use a foreach loop to output our $orders array.


// list headers

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Quantity', 0, 120, 20, 10, 10, 'B', 'C');

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Product or service', 20, 120, 90, 10, 10, 'B');

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Price', 110, 120, 30, 10, 10, 'B', 'R');

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Amount', 140, 120, 30, 10, 10, 'B', 'R');


$pdf->Line(20, 129, 195, 129);


// some example data

$orders[] = array('quant' => 5, 'descr' => '.com domain registration', 'price' => 9.95);

$orders[] = array('quant' => 3, 'descr' => '.net domain name renewal', 'price' => 11.95);

$orders[] = array('quant' => 1, 'descr' => 'SSL certificate 256-Byte encryption', 'price' => 99.95);

$orders[] = array('quant' => 1, 'descr' => '25GB VPS Hosting, 200GB Bandwidth', 'price' => 19.95);


$currY = 128;

$total = 0;

foreach ($orders as $row) {

	$pdf->CreateTextBox($row['quant'], 0, $currY, 20, 10, 10, '', 'C');

	$pdf->CreateTextBox($row['descr'], 20, $currY, 90, 10, 10, '');

	$pdf->CreateTextBox('$'.$row['price'], 110, $currY, 30, 10, 10, '', 'R');

	$amount = $row['quant']*$row['price'];

	$pdf->CreateTextBox('$'.$amount, 140, $currY, 30, 10, 10, '', 'R');

	$currY = $currY+5;

	$total = $total+$amount;

}

$pdf->Line(20, $currY+4, 195, $currY+4);
After the headers and after the list of invoice items we create a line. Inside the loop, we use the variable $currY to raise the Y coordinate by 5 for each new row. The row amount is calculated by PHP and also the total amount is raised inside the foreach loop.

Invoice footer and information
First we create a total row using the value from the variable $total we created before. After that row we have a MultiCell which can hold the payment conditions or just some other information. You can use HTML code in this cell as well, for example a link to your terms and conditions.

// output the total row

$pdf->CreateTextBox('Total', 20, $currY+5, 135, 10, 10, 'B', 'R');

$pdf->CreateTextBox('$'.number_format($total, 2, '.', ''), 140, $currY+5, 30, 10, 10, 'B', 'R');


// some payment instructions or information

$pdf->setXY(20, $currY+30);

$pdf->SetFont(PDF_FONT_NAME_MAIN, '', 10);

$pdf->MultiCell(175, 10, 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Vestibulum sagittis venenatis urna, in pellentesque ipsum pulvinar eu. In nec nulla libero, eu sagittis diam. Aenean egestas pharetra urna, et tristique metus egestas nec. Aliquam erat volutpat. Fusce pretium dapibus tellus.', 0, 'L', 0, 1, '', '', true, null, true);


//Close and output PDF document

$pdf->Output('test.pdf', 'F');
At the end we call the output method which will safe the created PDF under the name test.pdf and sends the document to the browser.

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