Create pdfs by creating reusable templates. Optionally you can define different base styles to share between your pdf's. Think in term of logo's, colors, spacing, etc.
A pdf can be built using clear syntax with variable and extendable options for every item you create. This package is built for Laravel but can also be used with vanilla PHP or any other framework. Like everything else, this too is interchangable.
class ExamplePdf
{
private function build(PdfBuilder $builder) : Document
{
// start a document and load the settings that are default for all
// These settings overwrite the default settings.
// therefor settings are optional as there is a default
$document = $builder->document();
$document->settings(new SomeSettings);
// We do not add pages. Pages are added automatically. Instead we add sections and create pages as we go and as fits
$document->addSection(function($section) {
// section passes back to document but has the document in it
// add a titleor a paragraph
$section->add($this->title($section, 'The title'));
$section->add($this->paragraph($section, 'Some text'));
// tables are more complex. Once in a table you can add rows and cells
$section->addTable(function($table) {
// add a row
$table->addRow(function($row) {
// each cell in the row might have a different height
// but we take the highest and equalize the rest
// to fit it. This makes advanced tables impossible
// but it standardizes the table
$row->addCell(function($cell) {
// lets drop a paragraph in the cell
$cell->add($this->paragraph($cell, 'Some paragraph'));
})->width(60);
$row->addCell(function($cell) {
// lets drop a title in the cell
$cell->add($this->title($cell, 'Some title'));
})->width(40);
// so this row has two cells. By default we will be
// assuming that you'd like to have two columns
// each with 50% width. If you want to have a different
// width you can set it here as we did in percentages with
// the function width(). But the function grid() is also
// available. This will set the width in grid units.
// mix and match as you like
}, new RowSettings);
// Settings can come from a class with a settings interface
// or you can just chain the same interfaced functions
// We make this possible by rendering after the init
}, new TableSettings);
})->break(false)->lineHeight(1.5); // etc
$document->title('Some title')->download(); // or inline or whatever
}
// these can all be moved to traits if needed
private function title($instance, $text) : Title
{
return (new Title($section))
->text($text)
->font('Calibri')
->margin(2, 4) // like css; top and bottom have 2, left right have 4
->padding(2); // Like css: All sides 2 points padding
// etc;
}
private function paragraph($instance, $text) : Paragraph
{
return (new Paragraph($section))
->text($text);
// etc;
}
}The industry standard now a days leans towards html conversion. As this is maintainable and easily built, we found that the conversion was slow and did not support css3 (flex box in particular). We also would've liked more control over the page breaking and wanted to keep a small footprint as we save all our pdf's to disk for administration purposes (somewhat specific to our business). But the real issue was speed. Every month we build thousends of pdf's in the background. We found that using a library like FPDF still gives the fastest and leanest pdf's. The problem however is the interface. It takes a lot of calculations to create a proper maintainable pdf with this lib. So this is our attempt to make it more standardized, extendable, repeatable and most of all, simple.