Generating PDF Reports in PHP: Library Overview and Code Examples

Generating PDF Reports in PHP: A Complete Developer's Guide

Creating PDF documents is one of the most in-demand tasks in web development. Reports, invoices, certificates, educational materials — all of these often need to be generated dynamically on the server side. PHP offers several powerful libraries that allow you to create PDFs of any complexity. In this article, we will cover four popular tools: TCPDF, FPDF, Dompdf, and mPDF, and provide practical code examples.

Why Generate PDFs in PHP?

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a universal format that displays correctly on any device. In educational projects like PythonLib, PDF reports can be used for:

• Exporting test and exam results
• Creating course completion certificates
• Generating study guides and notes
• Compiling statistical reports for teachers

Overview of Popular Libraries

1. TCPDF

TCPDF is one of the most powerful and mature libraries for working with PDFs in PHP. It supports:

• Full set of PDF 1.7 features
• Font embedding (including Unicode and Cyrillic)
• Drawing charts, tables, QR codes
• CSS support (limited)

Basic usage example:

require_once('tcpdf/tcpdf.php');

$pdf = new TCPDF('P', 'mm', 'A4', true, 'UTF-8', false);$pdf->SetCreator('PythonLib');$pdf->SetAuthor('Developer');$pdf->SetTitle('Test Report');

$pdf->AddPage();$pdf->SetFont('dejavusans', '', 14);$pdf->Cell(0, 10, 'Hello, world! This is a PDF report.', 0, 1, 'C');

$pdf->Output('report.pdf', 'I');

2. FPDF

FPDF is a lightweight and fast library, ideal for simple documents. Its main features:

• No external dependencies required
• Simple API for adding text, images, and lines
• UTF-8 support via additional packages

Example of creating a table:

require('fpdf/fpdf.php');

$pdf = new FPDF();$pdf->AddPage();$pdf->SetFont('Arial', 'B', 16);$pdf->Cell(40, 10, 'Name', 1);$pdf->Cell(40, 10, 'Score', 1);$pdf->Ln();$pdf->SetFont('Arial', '', 12);$pdf->Cell(40, 10, 'Ivan', 1);$pdf->Cell(40, 10, '95', 1);$pdf->Output();

3. Dompdf

Dompdf allows you to convert HTML+CSS to PDF. This is convenient if you already use template engines (e.g., Twig). Features:

• Support for CSS 2.1 and partial CSS3
• Working with images and fonts
• Easy integration with web applications

Example with an HTML template:

use Dompdf\\Dompdf;

$dompdf = new Dompdf();$html = '<h2 style="color:blue;">Python Course Report</h2>         <p>Student: Alexey, Result: 87%</p>';$dompdf->loadHtml($html, 'UTF-8');$dompdf->setPaper('A4', 'portrait');$dompdf->render();$dompdf->stream('report.pdf');

4. mPDF

mPDF is another library for converting HTML to PDF. It supports complex styles, Unicode, and also:

• Automatic table of contents generation
• Watermarks and backgrounds
• Working with large data volumes

Example with a stylesheet:

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$mpdf = new \\Mpdf\\Mpdf();$mpdf->WriteHTML('<h1>Statistics</h1>