Skip to content
phpdftk

Quick Start

Hello World (Level 2)

Section titled “Hello World (Level 2)”

The simplest way to create a PDF. No PDF knowledge required:

use Phpdftk\Pdf\Writer\Pdf;


$pdf = new Pdf();
$pdf->addHeading('Hello, World!', 1);
$pdf->addText('This is my first PDF generated with phpdftk.');
$pdf->save('hello.pdf');

This gives you Letter-sized pages, 72pt margins, Helvetica 11pt, automatic word wrap, and auto-pagination.

Hello World (Level 1)

Section titled “Hello World (Level 1)”

When you need precise control over coordinates and drawing:

use Phpdftk\Pdf\Writer\PdfWriter;
use Phpdftk\Pdf\Core\Font\Type1Font;
use Phpdftk\Pdf\Core\Font\StandardFont;


$writer = new PdfWriter();
$page = $writer->addPage(612, 792);
$font = $writer->addFont(new Type1Font(StandardFont::Helvetica));


$page->drawText('Hello, World!', 72, 720, $font, 24);


$writer->save('hello.pdf');

Reading a PDF

Section titled “Reading a PDF”
use Phpdftk\Pdf\Reader\PdfReader;


$pdf = PdfReader::fromFile('document.pdf');


echo "Pages: " . $pdf->getPageCount() . "\n";
echo "Version: " . $pdf->getVersion() . "\n";


// Extract text
$text = $pdf->extractText(0); // page index is 0-based
echo $text;

Text search

Section titled “Text search”
use Phpdftk\Pdf\Toolkit\TextExtractor;


$results = TextExtractor::open('contract.pdf')->search('indemnification');


echo $results->count() . " matches found\n";
foreach ($results as $match) {
    echo "Page {$match->pageNumber}: {$match->text}\n";
}

Rendering HTML + CSS

Section titled “Rendering HTML + CSS”

When you already have HTML / CSS as the source of truth (templating engine output, Markdown via a <style> block, etc.), render it directly to PDF — no headless browser, no separate install:

use Phpdftk\HtmlToPdf\Renderer;
use Phpdftk\Pdf\Writer\PdfWriter;


$writer = new PdfWriter();
(new Renderer())->renderInto($writer, <<<'HTML'
<!DOCTYPE html>
<style>
  @page { size: A4; margin: 2cm }
  body { font: 11pt serif }
  h1 { color: #1a4480 }
  .highlight { background: #fff3cd; padding: 1px 4px }
</style>
<h1>Invoice #2026-001</h1>
<p>Thank you for your business. Total due: <span class="highlight">$1,250</span></p>
HTML);


$writer->save('invoice.pdf');

The pipeline handles inline <svg> and <math> too — see the HTML to PDF docs for the full feature surface and current WPT pass rates.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”
☕ Support phpdftk