Generate Printable Invoice in PHP using FPDF library

Nowadays, when almost everything is connected to internet. More people chooses web based application (or "webapp" in short) over desktop-based applications with various reasons but mostly because its flexibility and mobility.
WebApp can become potentially powerful in computing power compared to stand alone application. Because the processing is done in server-side, even a low-end mobile devices can access robust information which requires complex calculation and can also manipulate it.
But nothing is perfect, web app also have a lot of drawbacks. One of them is when it comes to physical document handling, such as document printing.

PDF generation in PHP

PDF generation in PHP gave a web-based application abilities to represent a printable, fixed- layout document to millimeter precision.
Such as printable invoices, printable reports, printable manifests, and other printable  documents.
In short, PDF generation is a best method to represent a printable document, compared to  any other method such as html, which is "dynamic layout" by nature.
The down side is, we cannot alter the produced document and it depends on browser's PDF  plugins whether to display it immediately on browser or just download it.
Here's a tutorial of how to make a PDF invoice in PHP using FPDF class.
You can download fpdf library package then extract it's content to your htdocs directory.
This package contains fpdf php library, example tutorials, and documentation.
FPDF has many methods to make and manipulate PDF content as you can see in its  documentation here.

Make PDF Invoice using PHP FPDF library

First, you need to download the fpdf library here.
Then extract it somewhere in your htdocs directory. Then make a php file as the pdf generator.
In this example, i am going t use portrait, A4 size paper with mm measurement unit.


Next, add a blank page using $pdf->AddPage(); method. Then output the result using $pdf->Output(); method.


You'll get something like:

Congratulations! you've just made a pdf file by yourself... Now what?...

Add content to pdf file with cells

Text content in pdf is written in cells (Imagine cells as a container). You can put text inside cells, and each cells has its own properties such as width, height, and border.
Cells are stacked horizontally one after another from left to right and end with a cell which defined as a line ending by its parameter or until $pdf->Ln(); method is invoked (imagine what "enter" button do when you're typing in text editor).
Fpdf cell method have following parameters (taken from it's documentation here):
Cell(float w [, float h [, string txt [, mixed border [, int ln [, string align [, boolean fill [, mixed link]]]]]]])
w and h is for width and height.
txt is the content.
border to define the border. It could be 1 for all border, 0 for no border, and combination between L,T,R,B. Please refer to the doc for further explanation. what we need right now is 1 and 0.
ln is line ending. 1 to end the line with this cell, otherwise 0.
align is the text alignment L,C,R, no justified.
as for fill and link, we don't need it right now so kindly refer to the docs.

Setting font properties in pdf

Before adding anything to the pdf, we should first set the font that will be used. Following is the SetFont method parameters taken from here:
SetFont(string family [, string style [, float size]])
family is the font such as 'Arial','Courier','Times', etc. Should be standard font or font defined by AddFont method (i'll explain it in another tutorial, meanwhile please watch this).
style is either one or combination between B,I,U or an empty string for none.
size is the font size in points.

Now we got the basics required to build our pdf invoice, let's move to the main point.

Make the printable PDF Invoice

Here is the codes for the invoice. Put this just after AddPage() and before Output().
I included some comments as explanation in the code.


Save then refresh your browser. If everything is alright. you should have something like this.
Congratulation! You've just made a printable pdf invoice.

If by any chance you're still confused after following this tutorial, please do enjoy this video-version of this tutorial. And if you want the source code, feel free to ask me in the comment section of aforementioned video.