10 Best Libraries for generating PDF Files

FPDF Library PDF generator

FPDF is a PHP class which allows to generate PDF files with pure PHP, that is to say without using the PDFlib library. F from FPDF stands for Free: you may use it for any kind of usage and modify it to suit your needs.

License: Free, no usage restrictons.

Supported technology: PHP.

iText

iText is a library that allows you to generate PDF files on the fly. iText is an ideal library for developers looking to enhance web- and other applications with dynamic PDF document generation and/or manipulation. iText is not an end-user tool. Typically you won't use it on your Desktop as you would use Acrobat or any other PDF application. Rather, you'll build iText into your own applications so that you can automate the PDF creation and manipulation process.

License: MPL/LGPL.

Supported technology: Java.

AlivePDF

ActionScript 3 Open-Source PDF Library - that provides 100% client side PDF generation

License: MIT.

Supported technology: ActionScript 3.

Prawn

PDF generation library written on Ruby laguage.

License: License of Ruby.

Supported technology: Ruby.

TCPDF

TCPDF is an Open Source PHP class for generating PDF documents. TCPDF project was started in 2002 and now it is freely used all over the world by millions of people. TCPDF is a Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS).

License: LGPL.

Supported technology:PHP.

PDFsharp

PDFsharp is the Open Source library that easily creates PDF documents from any .NET language. The same drawing routines can be used to create PDF documents, draw on the screen, or send output to any printer.

License: Open source.

Supported technology: .NET.

libHaru

libHaru is a free, cross platform, open source library for generating PDF files.

License: ZLIB/LIBPNG License.

Supported technologies: Written on C++, crossplatform.

Apache FOP

Apache FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is a print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects (XSL-FO) and an output independent formatter. It is a Java application that reads a formatting object (FO) tree and renders the resulting pages to a specified output. Output formats currently supported include PDF, PS, PCL, AFP, XML (area tree representation), Print, AWT and PNG, and to a lesser extent, RTF and TXT. The primary output target is PDF.

License: Apache License, version 2.0. Releases until version 0.20.5 are released unter the Apache License, version 1.1.

Supported technology: Java.

PDF Clown Project

PDF Clown Project is an open source implementation of the Portable Document Format (PDF) specification published by Adobe® Systems Inc., written as a class library in multiple languages (Java™ 1.5 and C# 2.0).

License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License..

Supported technologies: .NET, Java.

iText#

iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. iText# is a library that allows you to generate PDF files on the fly. It is implemented as an assembly.

License: Apache License, version 2.0. Releases until version 0.20.5 are released unter the Apache License, version 1.1.

License: MPL/LGPL.

Supported technology: .NET.

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