Write PDF file in Java using iText

In this tutorial we will see how to write PDF file in Java using iText library.

Review the code listed below. Running this program will generate a PDF file at location c:/itext.pdf. You can change the location in the program to suit your platform:

package com.quicklyjava;

import com.itextpdf.text.Document;
import com.itextpdf.text.Paragraph;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfWriter;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.util.Date;

public class JavaWritePDF {

	/**
	 * @param args
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		try {
			File file = new File("c://itext.pdf");
			FileOutputStream pdfFileout = new FileOutputStream(file);
			Document doc = new Document();
			PdfWriter.getInstance(doc, pdfFileout);

			doc.addAuthor("QuicklyJava.com");
			doc.addTitle("This is title");
			doc.open();

			Paragraph para1 = new Paragraph();
			para1.add("This is paragraph 1");

			Paragraph para2 = new Paragraph();
			para2.add("This is paragraph 2");

			doc.add(para1);
			doc.add(para2);

			doc.close();
			pdfFileout.close();

			System.out.println("Success!");
		} catch (Exception e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}

}

Write PDF file in Java using iText code explanation:

1) The line below gets an instance of PDFWriter. The doc object instance can be subsequently used to add content to the PDF

PdfWriter.getInstance(doc, pdfFileout);

2) The lines below adds Author and Title to the PDF file.

            doc.addAuthor("QuicklyJava.com");
			doc.addTitle("This is title");

3) The line below open the PDF document for writing.

doc.open();

4) The lines below create a Paragraph and add String content to the Paragraph.

            Paragraph para1 = new Paragraph();
			para1.add("This is paragraph 1");

5) The line below add the Paragraph to the PDF document:

doc.add(para1);

6) Once done with adding content, be sure to close the FileOutputStream and the Document:

            doc.close();
			pdfFileout.close();

Write PDF file in Java using iText Output:

Tutorials in this series:

You can download the eclipse project of the code explained in this tutorial:

JavaWritePDF (1.6MB)