Getting Started - PHP

In order to use PHP's PDF manipulation capabilities, you need to have the PDFLib library installed on your system. If you're working on Linux, you can download a copy from http://www.pdflib.com/ and compile it for your box. If you're running Windows, your job is even simpler - a pre-built PDF library is bundled with your distribution, and all you need to do is activate it by uncommenting the appropriate lines in your PHP configuration file.

Additionally, you'll need a copy of the (free!) Adobe Acrobat PDF reader, so that you can view the documents created via the PDFLib library. You can download a copy of this reader from http://www.adobe.com/

Once you've got everything in place, it's time to create a simple PDF file. Here goes:

<?php
// create handle for new PDF document
$pdf = pdf_new();
// open a file
pdf_open_file($pdf, "philosophy.pdf");
// start a new page (A4)
pdf_begin_page($pdf, 595, 842);
// get and use a font object
$arial = pdf_findfont($pdf, "Arial", "host", 1); pdf_setfont($pdf, $arial, 10);
// print text
pdf_show_xy($pdf, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,",50, 750); 
pdf_show_xy($pdf, "than are dreamt of in your philosophy", 50,730);
// end page
pdf_end_page($pdf);
// close and save file
pdf_close($pdf);
?>

Save this file, and then browse to it through your Web browser. PHP will execute the script, and a new PDF file will be created and stored in the location specified at the top of the script. Here's what you'll see when you open the file:

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