PHP Header PDF

PHP is a server-side scripting language that is commonly used to generate dynamic content on web pages. In this article, we will explore how to use PHP to create a PDF file and send it to the user's browser for download.

Setting up the PHP environment

To begin with, you need to ensure that PHP is installed on your server. You can verify this by running the following command on your server's terminal:

php -v

If PHP is not installed, you can download it from the official PHP website and install it on your machine.

Once you have confirmed that PHP is installed, you can proceed to install the required libraries for generating PDFs. In this tutorial, we will use the TCPDF library to generate PDF files.

To install TCPDF on your server, you can use composer by running the following command:

composer require tecnickcom/tcpdf

Alternatively, you can download the TCPDF library from the official website and extract it to your project directory.

Now that we have set up our environment, we can proceed to create a basic PHP script for generating PDFs.

Generating PDF files with PHP

To generate a PDF file with PHP, we need to include the TCPDF library and create a new instance of the TCPDF class. Here's an example:

require_once('vendor/autoload.php');

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

In this code snippet, we first include the TCPDF library using the require_once function. Next, we create a new instance of the TCPDF class and pass in some parameters like page orientation, page format, etc.

We can now add some content to our PDF file using the various methods provided by the TCPDF class. Here's an example:

$pdf->AddPage();

$pdf->SetFont('times', '', 12);

$pdf->Cell(0, 10, 'Hello World', 0, 1);

$pdf->Output('example.pdf', 'D');

In this example, we first add a new page to the PDF file using the AddPage function. Next, we set the font to Times New Roman using the SetFont function. Finally, we add some content to the PDF file using the Cell function and then download the file using the Output function.

Conclusion

In this article, we have explored how to use PHP to generate PDF files using the TCPDF library. With this knowledge, you can now create dynamic PDF files on your web pages and provide your users with a seamless experience.

Happy coding!