Drawing a table into pdf with pdfbox [closed] - javafx

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So my task is to print result of my app (working with JavaFX) into a pdf to save or print them. Right now I try to add a table to the pdf and I looking for a good way (appearance & performance) of doing it. There are two possible way that come into my mind. The first one would be to create a snapshot of the table and add it to the pdf. This looks for me like a simple way, but then I thought this wouldn't work, if the table has so many lines that It would fit on one page (I'm using the A4 format). The other one would be to draw a new table into the pdf. I could add a page break, if the height of the table is at a certain point and continue on the next page. I would be able to work on the appearance and make it look good, but I don't know if this is the best way from the performance perspective. Does someone have any experience in doing that or does someone have another way I haven't thought of?

Answer 1

I'm planning on implementing similar feature to my app soon.
Best way to work with PDF files (in my opinion) is iTextPDF library.
You can find examples and info how to use the library in https://itextpdf.com .
Quick example (source: https://itextpdf.com/en/resources/examples/itext-7/tables):
import com.itextpdf.kernel.color.Color;
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfWriter;
import com.itextpdf.layout.Document;
import com.itextpdf.layout.element.Cell;
import com.itextpdf.layout.element.Table;
import com.itextpdf.layout.property.TextAlignment;
import com.itextpdf.layout.property.VerticalAlignment;
import com.itextpdf.test.annotations.WrapToTest;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
#WrapToTest
public class HelloWorldTable {
public static final String DEST
= "results/javaone16/hello_table.pdf";
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
File file = new File(DEST);
file.getParentFile().mkdirs();
new HelloWorldTable().createPdf(DEST);
}
public void createPdf(String dest) throws IOException {
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument(new PdfWriter(dest));
try (Document document = new Document(pdf)) {
Table table = new Table(3);
Cell cell = new Cell(1, 3)
.setTextAlignment(TextAlignment.CENTER)
.add("Cell with colspan 3");
table.addCell(cell);
cell = new Cell(2, 1)
.add("Cell with rowspan 2")
.setVerticalAlignment(VerticalAlignment.MIDDLE);
table.addCell(cell);
table.addCell("Cell 1.1");
table.addCell(new Cell().add("Cell 1.2"));
table.addCell(new Cell()
.add("Cell 2.1")
.setBackgroundColor(Color.LIGHT_GRAY)
.setMargin(5));
table.addCell(new Cell()
.add("Cell 1.2")
.setBackgroundColor(Color.LIGHT_GRAY)
.setPadding(5));
document.add(table);
}
}
}
You can add rows automatically by creating a foreach loop from your source (TreeTableView, ListView etc), or you can add a if loop inside a for loop to limit the rows you are adding to the table.
Quick sample code how to do it:
//how much free space you have on your pdf page
int rowLimit = 15;
for (int i=0; i<rowLimit; i++){
//add rows to your table
//...
}
or you can continue adding new rows in a new page if limit is reached.
Sample code:
//how much free space you have on your pdf page
int rowLimit = 15;
int i=0;
//MyDataObject is an Object example where to get data from
//myListOfData is a List where all MyDataObject are stored
for (MyDataObject object : myListOfData){
if(i==rowLimit){
//create new page if limit is reached
document.newPage();
i=0; //reset row counter
}
i++;
//add rows to your table
//...
}
Update: (Ps.: Code Deprecated for newer versions of PDFBox)
If you want to use PDFBox library, you can use this example:
(original/non-edited source code: http://pdfboxtutorial.blogspot.com/2014/08/pdfbox-tutorial-creating-table-in-pdf.html )
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDPage;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.common.PDRectangle;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.edit.PDPageContentStream;
/**
* #author Bharathi Raja
*/
public class CreatePDFBOXTable {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
createTable();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void createTable() throws Exception {
String path = "d:\\tablepdf.pdf"; //location to store the pdf file
PDDocument document = new PDDocument();
PDPage page = new PDPage(PDPage.PAGE_SIZE_A4);
document.addPage(page);
PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(document, page);
PDRectangle mediabox = page.findMediaBox();
float margin = 50;
float startX = mediabox.getLowerLeftX() + margin;
float startY = mediabox.getUpperRightY() - margin;
final float rowHeight = 20f;
//SPECIFY THE NUMBER OF ROWS TO BE CREATED
//example: use list.size() to get the number of elements
final int rows = 3;
final float tableWidth = page.findMediaBox().getWidth() - (2 * margin);
//draw the rows
float nexty = 650;
for (int i = 0; i <= rows; i++) {
if (i == 0 || i == 1) {
contentStream.drawLine(margin, nexty, margin + tableWidth, nexty);
}
nexty -= rowHeight;
}
contentStream.drawLine(margin, 300, margin + tableWidth, 300);
int y = 650;
//drawing columns the columns
float nextx = 50;
int h = 300;
contentStream.drawLine(nextx, y, nextx, h);
nextx = 100;
contentStream.drawLine(nextx, y, nextx, h);
nextx = 350;
contentStream.drawLine(nextx, y, nextx, h);
nextx = 420;
contentStream.drawLine(nextx, y, nextx, h);
nextx = 475;
contentStream.drawLine(nextx, y, nextx, h);
nextx = 545;
contentStream.drawLine(nextx, y, nextx, h);
//now add the text
contentStream.close();
document.save(path);
document.close();
}
}
If you want to use the foreach loop to continue writing to next page, you can edit my sample above, replacing:
document.newPage();
with:
//set page format
PDPage page = new PDPage(PDPage.PAGE_SIZE_A4);
document.addPage(page);
Hope it helps!