Generate PDF report from php

Question

I am using php code to query to a database and the results will be used to generate a report.

If I want the report to be generated in a pdf format how should I do it

Answer 1

Look into html2pdf

Create your report as html and then run the code to transform into PDF. You don't need to know the language to generate the PDF blocks. Submitted forms work out cool too.

Answer 2

I've used TCPDF (http://www.tcpdf.org/) for my last project. It worked pretty good but the next time im going for a html to pdf converter, simply because designing the report (converting to pdf draw statements) was such a time sink.

So i would suggest http://sourceforge.net/projects/html2fpdf/

Answer 3

If you need UTF support in your PDF file, consider tcpdf library.

Download it from here: http://www.tecnick.com/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=tcpdf

And in your script:

<?php
//include files
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/tcpdf/config/lang/eng.php');
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/tcpdf/tcpdf.php');

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

//add some content using class methods

//Close and output PDF document
$pdf->Output('filename.pdf', 'I');
?>

Answer 4

You can also use FPDF, I've used that for several projects. In the beginning you will be annoyed a lot, but when you get used to it, it will get easier to create pdf's :)