I have several PDF templates that I would like to load and modify and output using tcpdf.
Is it possible to load an existing PDF and use it as a starting point in tcpdf?
You want to use FPDI.
There's some example code here.
I have tried the free version of FPDI but does not support PDF version 1.5 or higher.
If someone else is looking for a free solution I have used TCPDI. You can find it on github https://github.com/pauln/tcpdi
If you are using composer, you can find some fork for composer too. Just search tcpdi on github.
Once you add it to your project, the code is quite simple. It is an extension of TCPDF so all your previous code keep working
This is a snippet from my code. I used it to save a copy of the privacy policy (a static pdf) with the user name and agreement date on each page footer.
// Create new PDF document
$pdf = new TCPDI(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);
...
// Add the pages from the source file.
$pagecount = $pdf->setSourceFile($policyPdfPath);
for ($i = 1; $i <= $pagecount; $i++) {
$tplidx = $pdf->importPage($i);
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->useTemplate($tplidx);
// Add agreement text in document footer
$pdf->SetXY(15,282);
$pdf->Cell(180, 5, "Documento approvato da {$fullName} il {$date}", 0, 0, 'C');
}
// Send PDF on output
$pdf->Output(FOLDER_PATH . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "{$userId}.pdf", 'F');
For anyone else finding this, it does appear a PARSER and import class were built for TCPDF (https://tcpdf.org/docs/srcdoc/TCPDF/source-class-TCPDF_IMPORT/#50-100) but as of 2018 was still under development.
Its also worth noting that the solutions above do not allow the contents of the PDF pages to be edited. In other words you import the page as a whole, you cannot edit text content or images.
You can use fpdf with fpdi. You can’t modify directly a template, but you can add a text cell with a white background to cache the old content (note that the old content can be read by using some tools). Then save your new pdf. This tools are relatively easy to use. To resolve the fact that fpdi not read 1.5 pdf version in the free version, you can convert 1.5 version in 1.4 version by using ghost script with the exec command. I use this and work fine.
Related
I'm creating a web app that allows a canvas form to insert an image from a HTML canvas into a particular position in multiple PDF files. I had this working with python flask as a back-end but the people that I'm making it for only want it in PHP. I have tried using libraries like FPDI but they only work with PDF versions up to 1.4 while the PDF files we are using are version 1.7.
Does anyone know any possible libraries that can help me solve this issue. I would prefer not to convert the PDF files if possible.
Cheers
With TCPDF you can insert images into a PDF (v.1.7) file:
Requirements
composer require tecnickcom/tcpdf
Example
<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
$pdf = new TCPDF();
$pdf->setPDFVersion('1.7');
$pdf->setAutoPageBreak(true);
$pdf->setPrintHeader(false);
$pdf->setPrintFooter(false);
$pdf->AddPage();
// Insert image
$pdf->setJPEGQuality(100);
$pdf->image(__DIR__ . '/example.jpg', 10, 10);
// Close and output PDF document
//$pdf->output('doc.pdf', 'I');
// Save the pdf file
$content = $pdf->output('', 'S');
file_put_contents('example.pdf', $content);
We (Setasign, creator of FPDI) offer a commercial add-on that let you import PDFs which uses a compression technic that was introduced in PDF 1.5.
You may also try to downgrade these documents with an external program. I'm aware of some people using Ghostscript for this.
Generally you should know that you do not insert an image into the existing PDF but you create a completely new PDF while importing a single page into a reusable structure which you place onto a newly created page. On top of this you place the image.
With FPDI you cannot edit a PDF document.
I am generating a PDF document using TCPDF. My requirement is to merge an existing PDF content at the last page of the dynamically generated PDF.
By far the best solution to your problem is to use FPDI.
https://github.com/Setasign/FPDI
The way it works is that FPDI extends TCPDF so you can work with an FPDI object using all of the methods that you're used to using with TCPDF, but with the additional methods that you need to import pages from existing PDF files (setSourceFile, getTemplateSize and useTemplate).
It looks a bit daunting to set up, but if you're using Composer it is actually incredibly easy. Just add setasign/fpdi and setasign/fpdi-tcpdf to your composer.json file and then use an instance of FPDI in place of your TCPDF instance. I found I didn't even have to call class_exists('TCPDF', true) as mentioned on the github page. Once I added those other entries to composer.json and ran composer dumpautoload it just worked.
This is still in development for TCPDF: http://www.tcpdf.org/doc/code/classTCPDF__IMPORT.html#a5a9effc936e8fa461c0f6717c2d10d93
If possible you can use ZEND:
require_once 'Zend/Pdf.php';
$pdf1 = Zend_Pdf::load("1.pdf");
$pdf2 = Zend_Pdf::load("2.pdf");
foreach ($pdf2->pages as $page){
$pdf1->pages[] = $page;
}
$pdf1->save('3.pdf');
If you are running on Linux, you can also run a shell command.
<?php
exec('pdfjam 1.pdf 2.pdf -o 3.pdf'); // -o = output
You can install pdfjam from here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/staff/academic/firth/software/pdfjam/pdfjam_latest.tgz
I have tried the free version of FPDI but does not support PDF version 1.5 or above.
If someone else is looking for a free solution I have used TCPDI. You can find it on github.
My project does not use composer, so I used the master branch from https://github.com/pauln/tcpdi
If you are using composer, you can find some fork for composer too. Just search tcpdi on github.
Once you add it to your project, the code is quite simple.
This is a snippet from my code. I used it to save a copy of the privacy policy (a static pdf) with the user name and agreement date in footer.
// Create new PDF document
$pdf = new TCPDI(PDF_PAGE_ORIENTATION, PDF_UNIT, PDF_PAGE_FORMAT, true, 'UTF-8', false);
...
// Add the pages from the source file.
$pagecount = $pdf->setSourceFile($localPrivacy);
for ($i = 1; $i <= $pagecount; $i++) {
$tplidx = $pdf->importPage($i);
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->useTemplate($tplidx);
// Add agreement text in document footer
$pdf->SetXY(15,282);
$pdf->Cell(180, 5, "Documento approvato da {$fullName} il {$date}", 0, 0, 'C');
}
// Send PDF on output
$pdf->Output(FOLDER_PATH . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "{$userId}.pdf", 'F');
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Does anyone know of a good method for editing PDFs in PHP? Preferably open-source/zero-license cost methods. :)
I am thinking along the lines of opening a PDF file, replacing text in the PDF and then writing out the modified version of the PDF?
On the front-end
If you are taking a 'fill in the blank' approach, you can precisely position text anywhere you want on the page. So it's relatively easy (if not a bit tedious) to add the missing text to the document. For example with Zend Framework:
<?php
require_once 'Zend/Pdf.php';
$pdf = Zend_Pdf::load('blank.pdf');
$page = $pdf->pages[0];
$font = Zend_Pdf_Font::fontWithName(Zend_Pdf_Font::FONT_HELVETICA);
$page->setFont($font, 12);
$page->drawText('Hello world!', 72, 720);
$pdf->save('zend.pdf');
If you're trying to replace inline content, such as a "[placeholder string]," it gets much more complicated. While it's technically possible to do, you're likely to mess up the layout of the page.
A PDF document is comprised of a set of primitive drawing operations: line here, image here, text chunk there, etc. It does not contain any information about the layout intent of those primitives.
There is a free and easy to use PDF class to create PDF documents. It's called FPDF. In combination with FPDI (http://www.setasign.de/products/pdf-php-solutions/fpdi) it is even possible to edit PDF documents.
The following code shows how to use FPDF and FPDI to fill an existing gift coupon with the user data.
require_once('fpdf.php');
require_once('fpdi.php');
$pdf = new FPDI();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->setSourceFile('gift_coupon.pdf');
// import page 1
$tplIdx = $this->pdf->importPage(1);
//use the imported page and place it at point 0,0; calculate width and height
//automaticallay and ajust the page size to the size of the imported page
$this->pdf->useTemplate($tplIdx, 0, 0, 0, 0, true);
// now write some text above the imported page
$this->pdf->SetFont('Arial', '', '13');
$this->pdf->SetTextColor(0,0,0);
//set position in pdf document
$this->pdf->SetXY(20, 20);
//first parameter defines the line height
$this->pdf->Write(0, 'gift code');
//force the browser to download the output
$this->pdf->Output('gift_coupon_generated.pdf', 'D');
If you need really simple PDFs, then Zend or FPDF is fine. However I find them difficult and frustrating to work with. Also, because of the way the API works, there's no good way to separate content from presentation from business logic.
For that reason, I use dompdf, which automatically converts HTML and CSS to PDF documents. You can lay out a template just as you would for an HTML page and use standard HTML syntax. You can even include an external CSS file. The library isn't perfect and very complex markup or css sometimes gets mangled, but I haven't found anything else that works as well.
Don't know if this is an option, but it would work very similar to Zend's pdf library, but you don't need to load a bunch of extra code (the zend framework). It just extends FPDF.
http://www.setasign.de/products/pdf-php-solutions/fpdi/
Here you can basically do the same thing. Load the PDF, write over top of it, and then save to a new PDF. In FPDI you basically insert the PDF as an image so you can put whatever you want over it.
But again, this uses FPDF, so if you don't want to use that, then it won't work.
Zend Framework can load and edit existing PDF files. I think it supports revisions too.
I use it to create docs in a project, and it works great. Never edited one though.
Check out the doc here
The PDF/pdflib extension documentation in PHP is sparse (something that has been noted in bugs.php.net) - I reccommend you use the Zend library.
Tcpdf is also a good liabrary for generating pdf in php
http://www.tcpdf.org/
We use pdflib to create PDF files from our rails apps. It has bindings for PHP, and a ton of other languages.
We use the commmercial version, but they also have a free/open source version which has some limitations.
Unfortunately, this only allows creation of PDF's.
If you want to open and 'edit' existing files, pdflib do provide a product which does this this, but costs a LOT
<?php
//getting new instance
$pdfFile = new_pdf();
PDF_open_file($pdfFile, " ");
//document info
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Auther", "Ahmed Elbshry");
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Creator", "Ahmed Elbshry");
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Title", "PDFlib");
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Subject", "Using PDFlib");
//starting our page and define the width and highet of the document
pdf_begin_page($pdfFile, 595, 842);
//check if Arial font is found, or exit
if($font = PDF_findfont($pdfFile, "Arial", "winansi", 1)) {
PDF_setfont($pdfFile, $font, 12);
} else {
echo ("Font Not Found!");
PDF_end_page($pdfFile);
PDF_close($pdfFile);
PDF_delete($pdfFile);
exit();
}
//start writing from the point 50,780
PDF_show_xy($pdfFile, "This Text In Arial Font", 50, 780);
PDF_end_page($pdfFile);
PDF_close($pdfFile);
//store the pdf document in $pdf
$pdf = PDF_get_buffer($pdfFile);
//get the len to tell the browser about it
$pdflen = strlen($pdfFile);
//telling the browser about the pdf document
header("Content-type: application/pdf");
header("Content-length: $pdflen");
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=phpMade.pdf");
//output the document
print($pdf);
//delete the object
PDF_delete($pdfFile);
?>
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Closed 8 years ago.
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Does anyone know of a good method for editing PDFs in PHP? Preferably open-source/zero-license cost methods. :)
I am thinking along the lines of opening a PDF file, replacing text in the PDF and then writing out the modified version of the PDF?
On the front-end
If you are taking a 'fill in the blank' approach, you can precisely position text anywhere you want on the page. So it's relatively easy (if not a bit tedious) to add the missing text to the document. For example with Zend Framework:
<?php
require_once 'Zend/Pdf.php';
$pdf = Zend_Pdf::load('blank.pdf');
$page = $pdf->pages[0];
$font = Zend_Pdf_Font::fontWithName(Zend_Pdf_Font::FONT_HELVETICA);
$page->setFont($font, 12);
$page->drawText('Hello world!', 72, 720);
$pdf->save('zend.pdf');
If you're trying to replace inline content, such as a "[placeholder string]," it gets much more complicated. While it's technically possible to do, you're likely to mess up the layout of the page.
A PDF document is comprised of a set of primitive drawing operations: line here, image here, text chunk there, etc. It does not contain any information about the layout intent of those primitives.
There is a free and easy to use PDF class to create PDF documents. It's called FPDF. In combination with FPDI (http://www.setasign.de/products/pdf-php-solutions/fpdi) it is even possible to edit PDF documents.
The following code shows how to use FPDF and FPDI to fill an existing gift coupon with the user data.
require_once('fpdf.php');
require_once('fpdi.php');
$pdf = new FPDI();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->setSourceFile('gift_coupon.pdf');
// import page 1
$tplIdx = $this->pdf->importPage(1);
//use the imported page and place it at point 0,0; calculate width and height
//automaticallay and ajust the page size to the size of the imported page
$this->pdf->useTemplate($tplIdx, 0, 0, 0, 0, true);
// now write some text above the imported page
$this->pdf->SetFont('Arial', '', '13');
$this->pdf->SetTextColor(0,0,0);
//set position in pdf document
$this->pdf->SetXY(20, 20);
//first parameter defines the line height
$this->pdf->Write(0, 'gift code');
//force the browser to download the output
$this->pdf->Output('gift_coupon_generated.pdf', 'D');
If you need really simple PDFs, then Zend or FPDF is fine. However I find them difficult and frustrating to work with. Also, because of the way the API works, there's no good way to separate content from presentation from business logic.
For that reason, I use dompdf, which automatically converts HTML and CSS to PDF documents. You can lay out a template just as you would for an HTML page and use standard HTML syntax. You can even include an external CSS file. The library isn't perfect and very complex markup or css sometimes gets mangled, but I haven't found anything else that works as well.
Don't know if this is an option, but it would work very similar to Zend's pdf library, but you don't need to load a bunch of extra code (the zend framework). It just extends FPDF.
http://www.setasign.de/products/pdf-php-solutions/fpdi/
Here you can basically do the same thing. Load the PDF, write over top of it, and then save to a new PDF. In FPDI you basically insert the PDF as an image so you can put whatever you want over it.
But again, this uses FPDF, so if you don't want to use that, then it won't work.
Zend Framework can load and edit existing PDF files. I think it supports revisions too.
I use it to create docs in a project, and it works great. Never edited one though.
Check out the doc here
The PDF/pdflib extension documentation in PHP is sparse (something that has been noted in bugs.php.net) - I reccommend you use the Zend library.
Tcpdf is also a good liabrary for generating pdf in php
http://www.tcpdf.org/
We use pdflib to create PDF files from our rails apps. It has bindings for PHP, and a ton of other languages.
We use the commmercial version, but they also have a free/open source version which has some limitations.
Unfortunately, this only allows creation of PDF's.
If you want to open and 'edit' existing files, pdflib do provide a product which does this this, but costs a LOT
<?php
//getting new instance
$pdfFile = new_pdf();
PDF_open_file($pdfFile, " ");
//document info
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Auther", "Ahmed Elbshry");
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Creator", "Ahmed Elbshry");
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Title", "PDFlib");
pdf_set_info($pdfFile, "Subject", "Using PDFlib");
//starting our page and define the width and highet of the document
pdf_begin_page($pdfFile, 595, 842);
//check if Arial font is found, or exit
if($font = PDF_findfont($pdfFile, "Arial", "winansi", 1)) {
PDF_setfont($pdfFile, $font, 12);
} else {
echo ("Font Not Found!");
PDF_end_page($pdfFile);
PDF_close($pdfFile);
PDF_delete($pdfFile);
exit();
}
//start writing from the point 50,780
PDF_show_xy($pdfFile, "This Text In Arial Font", 50, 780);
PDF_end_page($pdfFile);
PDF_close($pdfFile);
//store the pdf document in $pdf
$pdf = PDF_get_buffer($pdfFile);
//get the len to tell the browser about it
$pdflen = strlen($pdfFile);
//telling the browser about the pdf document
header("Content-type: application/pdf");
header("Content-length: $pdflen");
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=phpMade.pdf");
//output the document
print($pdf);
//delete the object
PDF_delete($pdfFile);
?>
I have a doubt about using TCPDF and FPDI together.
I am working on a project where I need to modify existing PDF file and generate new PDF, actually existing PDF are Greeting card template and I have to print certain data at certain pages (such as Image on first page, message on 3rd page, artwork on 4th page) to generate final PDF.
I googled and found with TCPDF, it is not possible to manipulate existing PDF, they suggested using FPDI for opening and manipulating existing PDF.
That's where i am stuck. I need TCPDF (it methods to print images, transparent images, utf text, embed font etc) to do what I want to do, but, I need FPDI to start with. :(.
Please help me: is it possible to use both FPDI and TCPDF together? so that I can use features offered by both APIs ?
Thanks in advance...
http://www.setasign.de/products/pdf-php-solutions/fpdi/about/
"As of version 1.2.1 FPDI can be used with TCPDF - a derivate of FPDF."
libraries_load('tcpdf');
libraries_load('fpdi');
$pdf = new FPDI();
$pdf->setSourceFile("%local_file_path%");
$tplIdx = $pdf->importPage(1);
$pdf->AddPage('L', array(3.5, 2), FALSE);
$pdf->useTemplate($tplIdx, 0, 0, 3.5, 2, false);
I was using Drupal at the time so I used libraries_load but require_once should work.