In this tutorials, we will see how to work with Spring Boot PDF with iText using String Template.

Spring Boot PDF iText integration:

Technologies:

    • SpringBoot 1.4.5.RELEASE
    • iTextpdf 5.2.0
  • String Template 3.2
  • iText Pdf tool xmlworker 1.1
  • HTML cleaner 2.2
  • Java 8

Example Spring Boot PDF iText:

Project Structure:

Spring Boot Pdf Itext String Template

pom.xml

Included iText pdf, StringTemplate, htmlcleaner and recommended dependencies.

pom.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

  <groupId>com.onlinetutorialspoint</groupId>
  <artifactId>SpringBoot-iText-Pdf-Example</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>war</packaging>

  <name>SpringBoot-iText-Pdf-Example</name>
  <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>

  <parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.4.5.RELEASE</version>
  </parent>
  <properties>
    <java.version>1.8</java.version>
  </properties>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
      <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
      <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
      <version>${jstl.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
      <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
      <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
      <artifactId>itextpdf</artifactId>
      <version>5.2.0</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.antlr</groupId>
      <artifactId>stringtemplate</artifactId>
      <version>3.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.itextpdf.tool</groupId>
      <artifactId>xmlworker</artifactId>
      <version>1.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>net.sourceforge.htmlcleaner</groupId>
      <artifactId>htmlcleaner</artifactId>
      <version>2.2</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

Data.java

It is used to provide dynamic data to String template.

Data.java
package com.onlinetutorialspoint.beans;

public class Data {
  private String empNumber;
  private String empName;
  private String joiningDate;
  private String salary;
  private String deptNo;
  private String managerId;
  public Data(String empNumber, String empName,String joiningDate, String salary, String deptNo, String managerId) {
    super();
    this.empNumber = empNumber;
    this.empName = empName;
    this.joiningDate = joiningDate;
    this.salary = salary;
    this.deptNo = deptNo;
    this.managerId = managerId;
  }
  public String getEmpNumber() {
    return empNumber;
  }
  public void setEmpNumber(String empNumber) {
    this.empNumber = empNumber;
  }
  
  public String getEmpName() {
    return empName;
  }
  public void setEmpName(String empName) {
    this.empName = empName;
  }
  public String getJoiningDate() {
    return joiningDate;
  }
  public void setJoiningDate(String joiningDate) {
    this.joiningDate = joiningDate;
  }
  public String getSalary() {
    return salary;
  }
  public void setSalary(String salary) {
    this.salary = salary;
  }
  public String getDeptNo() {
    return deptNo;
  }
  public void setDeptNo(String deptNo) {
    this.deptNo = deptNo;
  }
  public String getManagerId() {
    return managerId;
  }
  public void setManagerId(String managerId) {
    this.managerId = managerId;
  }
}

Exports.java

Export Controller is used to handling actual pdf export logic. Where we create Data object and passed dynamic data to the StringTemplate object.

Exports.java
package com.onlinetutorialspoint.controller;

import com.itextpdf.text.Document;
import com.itextpdf.text.DocumentException;
import com.itextpdf.text.PageSize;
import com.itextpdf.text.html.simpleparser.HTMLWorker;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfWriter;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.Pipeline;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.XMLWorker;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.XMLWorkerHelper;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.html.Tags;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.parser.XMLParser;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.pipeline.css.CSSResolver;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.pipeline.css.CssResolverPipeline;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.pipeline.end.PdfWriterPipeline;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.pipeline.html.HtmlPipeline;
import com.itextpdf.tool.xml.pipeline.html.HtmlPipelineContext;
import com.onlinetutorialspoint.beans.Data;
import org.antlr.stringtemplate.StringTemplate;
import org.antlr.stringtemplate.StringTemplateGroup;
import org.htmlcleaner.HtmlCleaner;
import org.htmlcleaner.TagNode;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.io.StringReader;

@Controller
public class Exports {

  @RequestMapping(value = "generatePDF.htm", method = RequestMethod.GET)
  public void exportToPDF(final HttpServletRequest request, final HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException {
    OutputStream os = null;
    try {
      
      Data data = new Data("8596582","CHANDRA SHEKHAR","03/30/2016","$2,000.00","1005205",
          "452562");

      StringTemplate page = getStringTemplate();
      page.setAttribute("data",data);
      
      String content = page.toString();

      final HtmlCleaner htmlCleaner = new HtmlCleaner();
      final TagNode tagNode = htmlCleaner.clean(content);
      content = htmlCleaner.getInnerHtml(tagNode);

      os = response.getOutputStream();

      Document document = null;

      document = new Document(PageSize.A4);

      final ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
      final PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document, baos);
      document.open();

      final HtmlPipelineContext htmlContext = new HtmlPipelineContext();

      htmlContext.setTagFactory(Tags.getHtmlTagProcessorFactory());

      final CSSResolver cssResolver = XMLWorkerHelper.getInstance().getDefaultCssResolver(true);
      final Pipeline<?> pipeline = new CssResolverPipeline(cssResolver, new HtmlPipeline(htmlContext,
          new PdfWriterPipeline(document, writer)));
      final XMLWorker worker = new XMLWorker(pipeline, true);
      final XMLParser parser = new XMLParser(worker);

      try {
        parser.parse(new StringReader(content));
      } catch (final Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        
      }

      document.close();
      response.setContentType("Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8");
      response.addHeader(
          "Content-Disposition",
          "attachment; filename=employee_details.pdf");
      response.setContentLength(baos.size());
      baos.writeTo(os);
    } catch (final IOException | DocumentException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
      try {
        if (os != null) {
          os.flush();
          os.close();
        }
      } catch (final IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
      }
    }
  }

  StringTemplate getStringTemplate() {
    final StringTemplateGroup group = new StringTemplateGroup("Generators");
    return group.getInstanceOf("employee_details");
  }
}

HomeController.java

HomeController.java
package com.onlinetutorialspoint.controller;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;

@Controller
public class HomeController {

    @RequestMapping(value = "index", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String init(Model model) {
        return "index.jsp";
    }
}

Creating StringTemplate.

employee_details.st

empoyee_details.st
<html>
<body leftmargin='10.0' rightmargin='10.0' topmargin='10.0' bottommargin='10.0' style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; '>
    <div>
          <table style='font-size:8.0pt; font-family:Arial;  border: 0.5px thick #000000; border-collapse: collapse; width: 1500pt;'>
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='text-align:left; padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt;'>
             <p style='color: green;line-height: 12.0pt' >
              
             </p>	
          </td>
          <td colspan='4' style='text-align:left; padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt;'>
             <p style='color: black;line-height: 12.0pt' >
              <b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:00a8ff'>EMPLOYEE DETAILS</span></b>
             </p>	
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
        <td colspan='6' style='text-align:left; background-color:00b894;'>
             <br/>
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table>
      <div>
          </div>
          <div leftmargin='36.0' rightmargin='36.0' topmargin='36.0' bottommargin='36.0'>
          <table style='font-size:8.0pt; font-family:Arial; border-collapse: collapse; width: 900pt;'>
        <tr>
          <td style='text-align:left; width:50%;padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt;'>
             <p style='line-height: 12.0pt' >
              <b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>Employee Number</span></b>
             </p>	
          </td>
          <td style='text-align:left; width:50%;padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt;'>
             <p style='line-height: 12.0pt' >
              <b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>Joining Date</span></b>
             </p>	
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td style='text-align:left; width:50%; padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt;'>
             <p style='line-height: 12.0pt' >
              <b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>$data.empNumber$</span></b>
             </p>	
          </td>
          <td style='text-align:left; width:50%; padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt;'>
             <p style='line-height: 12.0pt' >
              <b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>$data.joiningDate$</span></b>
             </p>	
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td colspan=2 style='width:100%;'>
             <p style='line-height: 12.0pt' >
             </p>	
          </td>
        </tr>			
      </table>
      <div>

          </div>
          
      <table style='font-size:8.0pt; font-family:Arial;  border: 0.5px thick #000000; border-collapse: collapse; width: 900pt;'>
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
              <b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>EMPLOYEE NAME</span></b>
          </td>
        </tr>	
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
              <b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>$data.empName$</span></b>
          </td>
        </tr>			
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>DEPARTMENT NUMBER</span>
          </td>
        </tr>	
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>$data.deptNo$</span>
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>SALARY</span>
          </td>
        </tr>	
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>$data.salary$ </span>
          </td>
        </tr>	
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 100%'>
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 50%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'></span>
          </td>
          <td style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 50%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>MANAGER ID</span>
          </td>
        </tr>				
        <tr>
          <td style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 50%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'></span>
          </td>
          <td style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 50%'>
              <span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;'>$data.managerId$</span>
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td colspan='2' style='padding: .1pt .1pt .1pt .1pt; width : 16%'>
          </td>
        </tr>
  
      </table>
      <div><br/></div>
      </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Spring Boot Application.java

Application.java
package com.onlinetutorialspoint;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
  }
}

Run Application:

Terminal
mvn clean install
mvn spring-boot:run
[INFO] --- maven-compiler-plugin:3.1:testCompile (default-testCompile) @ SpringBoot-iText-Pdf-Example ---
[INFO] No sources to compile
[INFO] 
[INFO] <<< spring-boot-maven-plugin:1.4.5.RELEASE:run (default-cli) < test-compile @ SpringBoot-iText-Pdf-Example <<<
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- spring-boot-maven-plugin:1.4.5.RELEASE:run (default-cli) @ SpringBoot-iText-Pdf-Example ---

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::        (v1.4.5.RELEASE)

2018-05-20 18:40:47.665  INFO 5616 --- [           main] com.onlinetutorialspoint.Application     : Starting Application on DESKTOP-RN4SMHT with PID 5616 (E:\work\SpringBoot-iText-Pdf-Example\target\classes started by Lenovo in E:\work\SpringBoot-iText-Pdf-Example)
2018-05-20 18:40:47.665  INFO 5616 --- [           main] com.onlinetutorialspoint.Application     : No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default
2018-05-20 18:40:47.790  INFO 5616 --- [           main] ationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext : Refreshing org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext@68db8c58: startup date [Sun May 20 18:40:47 IST 2018]; root of context hierarchy
2018-05-20 18:40:50.684  INFO 5616 --- [           main] s.b.c.e.t.TomcatEmbeddedServletContainer : Tomcat initialized with port(s): 8080 (http)
2018-05-20 18:40:50.705  INFO 5616 --- [           main] o.apache.catalina.core.StandardService   : Starting service Tomcat
2018-05-20 18:40:50.705  INFO 5616 --- [           main] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine  : Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/8.5.11
....
....

Output:

Access application using :  http://localhost:8080/index

Spring Boot Pdf Itext String Template_output

Click on Download button, then the pdf will download into your local system.

Spring Boot Pdf Itext String Template_pdf

Happy Learning 🙂

You'll also like:

  1. How to change Spring Boot Tomcat Port Number
  2. How to Create own Spring Boot Error Page
  3. Spring Boot Hazelcast Cache Example
  4. Step By Step Spring Boot Docker Deployment Example
  5. Spring Boot Batch Example Csv to Database