FPDF - Determining height of MultiCell before placing?

Question

The basic question: Is it possible to determine the height of a MultiCell before placing it in the document?

The reason: I\'ve been tasked with creating a PDF version of

Answer 1

See also https://gist.github.com/johnballantyne/4089627

function GetMultiCellHeight($w, $h, $txt, $border=null, $align='J') {
    // Calculate MultiCell with automatic or explicit line breaks height
    // $border is un-used, but I kept it in the parameters to keep the call
    //   to this function consistent with MultiCell()
    $cw = &$this->CurrentFont['cw'];
    if($w==0)
        $w = $this->w-$this->rMargin-$this->x;
    $wmax = ($w-2*$this->cMargin)*1000/$this->FontSize;
    $s = str_replace("\r",'',$txt);
    $nb = strlen($s);
    if($nb>0 && $s[$nb-1]=="\n")
        $nb--;
    $sep = -1;
    $i = 0;
    $j = 0;
    $l = 0;
    $ns = 0;
    $height = 0;
    while($i<$nb)
    {
        // Get next character
        $c = $s[$i];
        if($c=="\n")
        {
            // Explicit line break
            if($this->ws>0)
            {
                $this->ws = 0;
                $this->_out('0 Tw');
            }
            //Increase Height
            $height += $h;
            $i++;
            $sep = -1;
            $j = $i;
            $l = 0;
            $ns = 0;
            continue;
        }
        if($c==' ')
        {
            $sep = $i;
            $ls = $l;
            $ns++;
        }
        $l += $cw[$c];
        if($l>$wmax)
        {
            // Automatic line break
            if($sep==-1)
            {
                if($i==$j)
                    $i++;
                if($this->ws>0)
                {
                    $this->ws = 0;
                    $this->_out('0 Tw');
                }
                //Increase Height
                $height += $h;
            }
            else
            {
                if($align=='J')
                {
                    $this->ws = ($ns>1) ? ($wmax-$ls)/1000*$this->FontSize/($ns-1) : 0;
                    $this->_out(sprintf('%.3F Tw',$this->ws*$this->k));
                }
                //Increase Height
                $height += $h;
                $i = $sep+1;
            }
            $sep = -1;
            $j = $i;
            $l = 0;
            $ns = 0;
        }
        else
            $i++;
    }
    // Last chunk
    if($this->ws>0)
    {
        $this->ws = 0;
        $this->_out('0 Tw');
    }
    //Increase Height
    $height += $h;

    return $height;
}