How to Generate PDFs with iText in Spring Boot: A Step‑by‑Step Guide

Environment: springboot2.3.10.RELEASE + itextpdf5.5.13.2

Dependencies

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
  <artifactId>itextpdf</artifactId>
  <version>5.5.13.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
  <artifactId>itext-asian</artifactId>
  <version>5.2.0</version>
</dependency>

Note: The itext-asian dependency is not required for compilation, but without it Chinese characters will not display.

Creating the Template

First create a template using Word.

Save the Word document as a PDF.

Open the PDF with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro.

1. Open Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro

Click the Form Wizard in the Forms menu.

Note: The arrow also indicates that a text field must be drawn to capture position information for inserting an image.

PDF Generation Utility

public static void genPdf(Student student, HttpServletResponse response) {
  try {
    ClassPathResource resource = new ClassPathResource("tml/pdf/student.pdf");
    PdfReader pdfReader = new PdfReader(resource.getInputStream());

    ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(pdfReader, baos);
    AcroFields af = stamper.getAcroFields();
    af.setField("name", student.getName());
    af.setField("major", student.getMajor());
    af.setField("sno", student.getSno());
    af.setField("place", student.getPlace());
    // Insert image
    String imgUrl = new ClassPathResource("static/1.png").getURL().getPath();
    FieldPosition position = af.getFieldPositions("header").get(0);
    int pageNo = position.page;
    Rectangle signRect = position.position;
    float x = signRect.getLeft();
    float y = signRect.getBottom();
    // Read image
    Image image = Image.getInstance(imgUrl);
    // Get page to operate on
    PdfContentByte under = stamper.getOverContent(pageNo);
    // Scale image to field size
    image.scaleToFit(signRect.getWidth(), signRect.getHeight());
    // Add image
    image.setAbsolutePosition(x, y);
    under.addImage(image);

    // Set output PDF (must flatten to prevent further editing)
    stamper.setFormFlattening(true);
    stamper.close();
    // Respond to client
    String downloadFileName = new String((student.getName() + "个人信息.pdf").getBytes("utf-8"), "iso8859-1");
    response.addHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment;filename=" + downloadFileName);
    OutputStream os = new BufferedOutputStream(response.getOutputStream());

    Document doc = new Document();
    PdfCopy copy = new PdfCopy(doc, os);
    doc.open();
    PdfImportedPage importPage = copy.getImportedPage(new PdfReader(baos.toByteArray()), 1);
    copy.addPage(importPage);
    doc.close();

    response.setContentType("application/pdf");
    os.flush();
    os.close();

  } catch (Exception e) {
    logger.error("生成PDF错误：{}", e);
  }
}

Endpoint

@GetMapping("/download")
public void download() {
    Student student = new Student();
    student.setMajor("计算机生命与科学");
    student.setName("李逵");
    student.setPlace("北京");
    student.setSno("S001");

    PdfUtil.genPdf(student, response);
}

Generate the document

Done!!!

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