Writing to a PDF file in Java

22 Sep 2023

iText

In many cases, you may need to generate and save data in a PDF file format using Java. This could be for generating reports, invoices, or any other document that needs to be saved as a PDF. Luckily, Java provides several libraries and APIs to accomplish this task. In this blog post, we will discuss how to write to a PDF file in Java using the popular iText library.

Setting Up iText Library

First, you need to include the iText library in your Java project. You can download the library from the official iText website or add it as a Maven or Gradle dependency in your project configuration.

// Maven
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
    <artifactId>itextpdf</artifactId>
    <version>7.1.15</version>
</dependency>

// Gradle
implementation 'com.itextpdf:itextpdf:7.1.15'

Creating a PDF Document

To create a new PDF document, follow the steps below:

Import the necessary iText classes:

import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfWriter;
import com.itextpdf.layout.Document;
import com.itextpdf.layout.element.Paragraph;

Create an instance of PdfDocument and specify the file path where you want to save the PDF:

String filePath = "/path/to/output.pdf";
PdfDocument pdfDocument = new PdfDocument(new PdfWriter(filePath));

Create an instance of Document using the PdfDocument instance:

Document document = new Document(pdfDocument);

Adding Content to the PDF Document

Once you have created the Document, you can start adding content to the PDF. It could be text, tables, images, or any other element supported by iText.

Here’s an example of adding a paragraph of text to the PDF:

Paragraph paragraph = new Paragraph("Hello, World!");
document.add(paragraph);

You can also customize the appearance of the text by applying font styles, colors, alignment, etc.

Closing the Document

After you have finished adding content to the PDF, make sure to properly close the Document and PdfDocument instances to save and release resources:

document.close();
pdfDocument.close();

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have discussed how to write to a PDF file in Java using the iText library. We covered the basic steps of setting up the library, creating a PDF document, adding content, and closing the document. By following these steps, you can easily generate and save PDF files in your Java application.

#Java #PDF #iText