Pdf template with iText and Spring MVC - spring

Question

I want to create a PDF from a template (using pdf forms as shown here) in Spring MVC and output it to the browser using AbstractPdfView but I don't know how to obtain a Document from the PdfStamper, or if I should use the PdfWriter.. any idea? Below is the code I have so far, thanks
public class RecipePdf extends AbstractPdfView {
#Override
protected void buildPdfDocument(Map<String, Object> model, Document document,
PdfWriter pdfWriter, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
PdfReader pdfTemplate = new PdfReader ("/WEB-INF/template/recipe.pdf");
FileOutputStream fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream("test.pdf");
PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(pdfTemplate, fileOutputStream);
stamper.setFormFlattening(true);
stamper.getAcroFields().setField("number", "12345");
stamper.close();
pdfTemplate.close();

Answer 1

Spring's AbstractPdfStamperView along with iText can be used to generate PDF using a predefined template.
package com.pdf.view;
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.Map;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import org.springframework.context.MessageSource;
import org.springframework.context.MessageSourceAware;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.document.AbstractPdfStamperView;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfStamper;
public class PDFView extends AbstractPdfStamperView implements
MessageSourceAware {
private MessageSource messageSource;
#Override
public void setMessageSource(MessageSource messageSource) {
this.messageSource = messageSource;
}
#Override
protected void mergePdfDocument(Map<String, Object> model,
PdfStamper stamper, HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
stamper.setFormFlattening(true);
String customerName = (String) model.get("customerName");
Locale locale = request.getLocale();
stamper.getAcroFields().setField("customerNameLabel",
messageSource.getMessage("label.customername", null, locale));
stamper.getAcroFields().setField("customerNameValue", customerName);
stamper.close();
}
}
I used XMLViewResolver. Below is the entry made in spring-servlet.xml:
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.XmlViewResolver">
<property name="location">
<value>/WEB-INF/spring-pdf-views.xml</value>
</property>
</bean>
Below is the content of spring-pdf-views.xml
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd">
<bean id="invoicePDF"
class="com.pdf.view.PDFView">
<property name="url" value = "/WEB-INF/resources/templates/invoiceTemplate.pdf" />
</bean>
</beans>
Below is the method defined in controller code which will render the view. The view name set in ModelAndView here is same as defined in spring-pdf-views.xml above.
#RequestMapping(value = "/pdf",method = RequestMethod.POST)
public ModelAndView renderPDF(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("invoicePDF");
mav.addObject("customerName", "XYZ");
return mav;
}

Answer 2

1) I develop my document generators locally and test them using jUnit
2) If you just need the PDF, then it should be in the output dir... BUT...
3) BUT... if you need to join that doc into a bigger document, then read it using something like the following:
Document document = new Document();
PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document, outputStream);
document.open();
PdfContentByte cb = writer.getDirectContent();
for (String pdfFileName : pdfFileNamesList) {
InputStream in = new FileInputStream(pdfFileName);
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(in);
int numberOfPages = reader.getNumberOfPages();
for (int i = 1; i <= numberOfPages; i++) {
document.newPage();
//import the page from source pdf
PdfImportedPage page = writer.getImportedPage(reader, i);
//add the page to the destination pdf
cb.addTemplate(page, 0, 0);
}
}