Spring MVC - Generate PDF Example

The following example shows how to generate PDF using the Spring Web MVC Framework.

To start with, let us have a working Eclipse IDE in place and consider the following steps to develop a Dynamic Form based Web Application using Spring Web Framework −

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   <groupId>com.tutorialspoint</groupId>
   <artifactId>hello</artifactId>
   <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
   <packaging>war</packaging>
   <name>hello Maven Webapp</name>
   <url>http://www.tutorialspoint.com</url>
   <properties>
      <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
      <maven.compiler.source>24</maven.compiler.source>
      <maven.compiler.target>24</maven.compiler.target>
      <org.springframework.version>7.0.0-M9</org.springframework.version>
   </properties>
   <dependencies>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>junit</groupId>
         <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
         <version>4.13.1</version>
         <scope>test</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>jakarta.servlet</groupId>
         <artifactId>jakarta.servlet-api</artifactId>
         <version>6.0.0</version>
         <scope>provided</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
         <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
         <scope>compile</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
         <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
         <scope>compile</scope>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>com.rometools</groupId>
         <artifactId>rome</artifactId>
         <version>2.1.0</version>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
         <artifactId>poi</artifactId>
         <version>5.4.1</version>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
         <artifactId>poi-ooxml</artifactId>
         <version>5.4.1</version>
      </dependency> 
      <dependency>
         <groupId>com.lowagie</groupId>
         <artifactId>itext</artifactId>
         <version>2.1.7</version>
      </dependency>
   </dependencies>
   <build>
      <finalName>hello</finalName>
      <pluginManagement>
         <plugins>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.4.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.3.1</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.13.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.3.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.4.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-install-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.1.2</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-deploy-plugin</artifactId>
               <version>3.1.2</version>
            </plugin>
         </plugins>
      </pluginManagement>
   </build>
</project>

PDFController.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

@Controller
public class PDFController {

   @GetMapping("/pdf")
   protected ModelAndView getExcel() throws Exception {
      //user data
      Map<String,String> userData = new HashMap<String,String>();
      userData.put("1", "Mahesh");
      userData.put("2", "Suresh");
      userData.put("3", "Ramesh");
      userData.put("4", "Naresh");
      return new ModelAndView(new UserPDFView(),"userData",userData);
   }
}

UserPDFView.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.Map;

import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.document.AbstractPdfView;

import com.lowagie.text.Document;
import com.lowagie.text.Table;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfWriter;

public class UserPDFView extends AbstractPdfView {

   protected void buildPdfDocument(Map<String, Object> model, Document document,
      PdfWriter pdfWriter, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws Exception {
      Map<String,String> userData = (Map<String,String>) model.get("userData");

      Table table = new Table(2);
      table.addCell("Roll No");
      table.addCell("Name");

      for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : userData.entrySet()) {
         table.addCell(entry.getKey());
         table.addCell(entry.getValue());
      }
      document.add(table);
   }
}

Here, we have created an PDFController and a PDFView. iText library deals with PDF file formats and will convert the data to a PDF document.

hello-servlet.xml

<beans xmlns = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   xmlns:context = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
   xmlns:mvc = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
   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-3.0.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">

   <context:component-scan base-package = "com.tutorialspoint" />
   <mvc:annotation-driven />
</beans>

Output

Once you are done with creating source and configuration files, export your application. Right click on your application, use Run As → Maven Install option and save your hello.war file in Tomcat's webapps folder.

Now, start the Tomcat server and make sure you are able to access other webpages from the webapps folder using a standard browser. Try a URL http://localhost:8080/hello/pdf and we will see the following screen.