generating pdf files with php

Question

After some work with PHPExcel, I finally get it to generate sheets of 3000cells in ~5 seconds by using a big array.

With same data, I'll need to generate some pdf files. I've tried to do it with PHPExcel, but it is not a good choice. Generating a pdf file with PHPExcel, took a lot of time and a lot of resources.

I've tried to generate a pdf file with html2pdf php library. The file which contain a table with 3000 cells took me 20 seconds o generate.

My problem is that I can't find a good solution to my problem. Do you know any good library? Do you know any good practices in generating pdf files faster, with a low load on server side?

micfra · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-04 08:37:54Z

1

You can use the FPDF library to generate PDF files in a fast manner and you can use the Write HTML tables add-on to achieve what you want (see example at the bottom of the page).

answered Nov 4, 2011 at 8:37

micfra

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vicenteherrera · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-11 13:32:22Z

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PhpExcel uses TCPDF to generate PDF, the same as HTML2PDF with PHP5:

HTML2PDF is a HTML to PDF converter written in PHP4 (use FPDF), and PHP5 (use TCPDF).

I think that when generating a PDF, PhpExcel first generates XLS, then converts it to HTML, then again converts it to PDF. Not very efficient.

That is why by using HTML2PDF you can cut to 20 seconds.

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To cut waiting time even more, maybe you could try another library, like dompdf, and keep skiping PhpExcel when what you need is a PDF.

If your table doesn't have formulas, you can generate all the content in an array, and pass it to some function to generate an XLS with PhpExcel, and to another to generate a PDF.

answered Apr 11, 2012 at 13:32

vicenteherrera

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