Apache PDFBox Java library - Is there an API for creating tables?

Question

Hello all,

I am using the Apache PDFBox java library to create PDFs. Is there a way to create a data-table using pdfbox? If there is no such API to do it, I would require to manually draw the table using drawLine etc., Any suggestions on how to go about this?

Thanks
-Keshav

Answer 1

I don't know much about Apache PDFBox, but I know that iText can manage it. It's my first choice for working with PDFs in Java.

Here's a tutorial that I believe shows how.

Answer 2

The following method draws a table with the specified table content. Its a bit of a hack and will work for small strings of text. It does not perform word wrapping, but you can get an idea of how it is done. Give it a go!

/**
 * @param page
 * @param contentStream
 * @param y the y-coordinate of the first row
 * @param margin the padding on left and right of table
 * @param content a 2d array containing the table data
 * @throws IOException
 */
public static void drawTable(PDPage page, PDPageContentStream contentStream, 
                            float y, float margin, 
                            String[][] content) throws IOException {
    final int rows = content.length;
    final int cols = content[0].length;
    final float rowHeight = 20f;
    final float tableWidth = page.findMediaBox().getWidth() - margin - margin;
    final float tableHeight = rowHeight * rows;
    final float colWidth = tableWidth/(float)cols;
    final float cellMargin=5f;

    //draw the rows
    float nexty = y ;
    for (int i = 0; i <= rows; i++) {
        contentStream.drawLine(margin, nexty, margin+tableWidth, nexty);
        nexty-= rowHeight;
    }

    //draw the columns
    float nextx = margin;
    for (int i = 0; i <= cols; i++) {
        contentStream.drawLine(nextx, y, nextx, y-tableHeight);
        nextx += colWidth;
    }

    //now add the text        
    contentStream.setFont( PDType1Font.HELVETICA_BOLD , 12 );        

    float textx = margin+cellMargin;
    float texty = y-15;        
    for(int i = 0; i < content.length; i++){
        for(int j = 0 ; j < content[i].length; j++){
            String text = content[i][j];
            contentStream.beginText();
            contentStream.moveTextPositionByAmount(textx,texty);
            contentStream.drawString(text);
            contentStream.endText();
            textx += colWidth;
        }
        texty-=rowHeight;
        textx = margin+cellMargin;
    }
}

Usage:

PDDocument doc = new PDDocument();
PDPage page = new PDPage();
doc.addPage( page );

PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(doc, page);

String[][] content = {{"a","b", "1"}, 
                      {"c","d", "2"}, 
                      {"e","f", "3"}, 
                      {"g","h", "4"}, 
                      {"i","j", "5"}} ;

drawTable(page, contentStream, 700, 100, content);
contentStream.close();
doc.save("test.pdf" );