iText is a library that allows developers to extend the
capabilities of their web server (and other JAVA)
applications with
dynamic PDF document generation.
Note: You might get a warning about rtf being deprecated. You can
safely ignore this warning for now.
This tutorial will show you how to create simple PDF's using Sun
Java Studio Creator and the iTEXT library.
Creating a iTEXT Class Library
Download itext-1.4.4.jar and itext-docs-1.4.4.tar.gz from http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
In the IDE, choose Tools > Library Manager from the main menu
Click New Library, type iTEXT in the Library Name field, and click OK.
Click Add JAR/Folder and navigate to the directory where you saved itext-1.4.4.jar
To make the iTEXT Javadoc
available to the Java Editor, select the Javadoc tab, click Add
Zip/Folder, navigate to the directory into which you extracted the itext-docs-1.4.4.tar.gz files, select the directory, and press Enter.
Click OK to close the Library Manager.
Creating our Main Page
Choose File > New Project, JSF Web Application and call it iTEXT-1
Add 3 Text Field Components, 3 Label Components and 1 button component to Page1. Change the text from the label components to: Name: Address: and Hobby: and attach the label components to the Text Field Components by selecting a label component, holding ctrl+shift and drag them to the Text Field Component. Change the text of the button component to Submit.
Storing the values inside SessionBean1
Create 3 SessionBean Property's by going to the project window, Expand Session Bean, Right click on SessionBean1, choose Add -> Property. Name the 3 properties as Name, Address, Hobby.
Now bind the Text Field Components together with the
SessionBean properties. To do that right click on a Text Field
Component -> Property Bindings and select the approbiate
SessionBean property and next click on apply. Do this for all 3 Text
Field Components.
Create a Second Page with 3 output options
Create a new page, right click on Web Pages -> New -> Page , name is Page2 and press finished.
Drag a label component and 3 Hyperlink components on Page2.
Change the text of the label component to: Would you like to view
your data as:
Change the text of your Hyperlink components to
HTML, RTF and PDF. In the properties window of the Hyperlink
components set the url to: servlet/iTEXT.pdf?presentationtype=html
for HTML
servlet/iTEXT.rtf?presentationtype=rtf for
RTF
servlet/iTEXT.pdf?presentationtype=pdf for PDF
In the
properties window for the label component set labelLevel to Strong
Right click inside Page2 and select Page Navigation. Drag the button component from Page1.jsp to Page2.jsp and press enter.
Creating an iTEXT Servlet
From the Projects Window right click on Libraries -> Add Library -> Select iTEXT -> Click Add Library.
Next from your Projects Window right click on Source Packages -> New -> Java Package. Fill in Package Name lowagie and click finish.
From the Projects Windows expand the Source Packages, Right Click on lowagie and choose New -> Java Class. Fill in Class Name servlet1 and choose finish.
Servlet1.java will be opened. Copy and paste the code below inside servlet1.java
package lowagie;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.io.*;
import com.lowagie.text.Document;
import com.lowagie.text.DocumentException;
import com.lowagie.text.Paragraph;
import com.lowagie.text.html.HtmlWriter;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfWriter;
import com.lowagie.text.rtf.RtfWriter;
import itext1.SessionBean1;
import java.util.Date;
public class servlet1 extends HttpServlet {
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
//Store SessionBean Properties inside variables
itext1.SessionBean1 sessionBean = (SessionBean1) request.getSession().getAttribute( "SessionBean1" );
String name = sessionBean.getName();
String address = sessionBean.getAddress();
String hobby = sessionBean.getHobby();
// we retrieve the presentationtype
String presentationtype = request.getParameter("presentationtype");
// step 1
Document document = new Document();
try {
// step 2: we set the ContentType and create an instance of the corresponding Writer
if ("pdf".equals(presentationtype)) {
response.setContentType("application/pdf");
PdfWriter.getInstance(document, response.getOutputStream());
} else if ("html".equals(presentationtype)) {
response.setContentType("text/html");
HtmlWriter.getInstance(document, response.getOutputStream());
} else if ("rtf".equals(presentationtype)) {
response.setContentType("text/rtf");
RtfWriter.getInstance(document, response.getOutputStream());
} else {
response.sendRedirect("http://itextdocs.lowagie.com/tutorial/general/webapp/index.html#HelloWorld");
}
// step 3
document.open();
// step 4
document.add(new Paragraph(name));
document.add(new Paragraph(address));
document.add(new Paragraph(hobby));
document.add(new Paragraph(new Date().toString()));
} catch(DocumentException de) {
de.printStackTrace();
System.err.println("document: " + de.getMessage());
}
// step 5: we close the document (the outputstream is also closed internally)
document.close();
}
public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
doGet(request, response);
}
}
Changing our discriptor file so we can access the servlet
From the files windows expand iTEXT-1 -> web -> WEB-INF -> right click web.xml and select edit. Switch to XML view in the top and add the following code:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Generate PDF or HTML</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>lowagie.servlet1</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Generate RTF</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>lowagie.servlet1</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Generate PDF or HTML</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/servlet/iTEXT.pdf</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Generate RTF</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/servlet/iTEXT.rtf</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
Testing your application.
Deploy the application and try to get the output in HTML, RTF and
PDF.
Click here for the pdf version