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php-mcpdf (fork of php-pdftk)

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In brief:

pdftk does not allow to render Unicode fonts into PDF form fields.

mcpdf https://github.com/m-click/mcpdf does.

A PDF conversion and form utility based on pdftk.

Features

php-pdftk brings the full power of pdftk to PHP - and more.

• Fill forms, either from a XFDF/FDF file or from a data array (UTF-8 safe for unflattened forms, requires pdftk 2.x !)
• Create XFDF or FDF files from PHP arrays (UTF-8 safe!)
• Create FDF files from filled PDF forms
• Combine pages from several PDF files into a new PDF file
• Split a PDF into one file per page
• Add background or overlay PDFs
• Read out meta data about PDF and form fields
• Set passwords and permissions
• Remove passwords

Requirements

• The pdftk command must be installed and working on your system
• This library is written for pdftk 2.x versions. You should be able to use it with pdftk 1.x but not all methods will work there. For details consult the man page of pdftk on your system.

Note If you're on Ubuntu you may want to install the version from ppa:malteworld/ppa. The default packages seems to use snap an there have been reports about file permission issues with this version. See below for a workaround.

Installation

You should use composer to install this library.

Examples

Operations

Please consult the pdftk man page for each operation to find out how each operation works in detail and which options are available.

Note: Some commands allow to alias your files with a handle (see examples below). In version 2.x of pdftk a handle can be one or more upper case letters.

For all operations you can either save the PDF locally through saveAs($name) or send it to the browser with send(). If you pass a filename to send($name) the client browser will open a download dialogue whereas without a filename it will usually display the PDF inline.

IMPORTANT: You can always only perform one of the following operations on a single PDF instance. Below you can find a workaround if you need multiple operations.

Fill Form

Fill a PDF form with data from a PHP array or an XFDF/FDF file.

Note: When filling in UTF-8 data, you should always add the needAppearances() option. This will make sure, that the PDF reader takes care of using the right fonts for rendering, something that pdftk can't do for you. Also note that flatten() doesn't really work well if you have special characters in your data.

Create a XFDF/FDF file from a PHP array

This is a bonus feature that is not available from pdftk.

Cat

Assemble a PDF from pages from one or more PDF files.

Shuffle

Like cat() but create "streams" and fill the new PDF with one page from each stream at a time.

Burst

Split a PDF file into one file per page.

Add background PDF

Add another PDF file as background.

Add overlay PDF

Add another PDF file as overlay.

Generate FDF

Create a FDF file from a given filled PDF form.

Get PDF data

Read out metadata or form field information from a PDF file.

How to perform more than one operation on a PDF

As stated above, you can only perform one of the preceeding operations on a single PDF instance. If you need more than one operation you can feed one Pdf instance into another:

Options

You can combine the above operations with one or more of the following options.

Shell Command

The class uses php-shellcommand to execute pdftk. You can pass $options for its Command class as second argument to the constructor:

Temporary File

Internally a temporary file is created via php-tmpfile. You can also access that file directly, e.g. if you neither want to send or save the file but only need the binary PDF content:

If you have permission issues you may have to set a directory where your pdftk command can write to:

API

Please consult the source files for a full documentation of each method.