How to Create Tables Using the Apache PDFBox Java Library

Does the Apache PDFBox library provide an API to create tables?

// Example code will be inserted below.

The Apache PDFBox library does not provide a dedicated API for creating tables. However, you can utilize its core features to manually create tables using lines and text formatting.

// Example of creating a simple table in Apache PDFBox
PDDocument document = new PDDocument();
PDPage page = new PDPage();
document.addPage(page);
PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(document, page);

// Drawing table structure
int tableWidth = 500;
int tableHeight = 300;
int rows = 5;
int cols = 3;
float rowHeight = tableHeight / rows;
float colWidth = tableWidth / cols;

// Draw rows
for (int i = 0; i <= rows; i++) {
    contentStream.moveTo(100, 700 - (i * rowHeight));
    contentStream.lineTo(100 + tableWidth, 700 - (i * rowHeight));
}

// Draw columns
for (int j = 0; j <= cols; j++) {
    contentStream.moveTo(100 + (j * colWidth), 700);
    contentStream.lineTo(100 + (j * colWidth), 700 - tableHeight);
}

contentStream.stroke();
contentStream.close();
document.save("TableExample.pdf");
document.close();

Causes

• Lack of a dedicated table API in Apache PDFBox.
• The inherent nature of PDF files where the layout does not explicitly support table constructs.

Solutions

• Manually draw lines to represent the table structure.
• Use a loop to place text in specific coordinates for table cells.
• Leverage existing classes like PDPageContentStream for drawing lines and placing text.

Mistake: Not calculating coordinates correctly for table layout.

Solution: Use helper functions to calculate row and column positions accurately.

Mistake: Forgetting to close the content stream after drawing.

Solution: Always ensure to call contentStream.close() to avoid memory leaks.