How to print HTML to PDF Java

The Pdfcrowd API is an online tool that lets you easily generate PDF from web pages and raw HTML code in your Java applications. PDFs are generated in the cloud, no 3rd party libraries are needed. All you need is a tiny Java API client library.

Here are some samples created with the API. Click a thumbnail to open the PDF.


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Code samples

The following code converts a web page to PDF and writes it to a file: 

import com.pdfcrowd.*;
import java.io.*;
 
// create an API client instance
Client client = new Client("username", "apikey");

// convert a web page and save the PDF to a file
FileOutputStream fileStream = new FileOutputStream("google_com.pdf");
client.convertURI("http://google.com/", fileStream);
fileStream.close();

You can also convert raw HTML code, just use the convertHtml() method instead of convertURI(): 

FileOutputStream fileStream = new FileOutputStream("MyHtml.pdf");
client.convertHtml("<body>My HTML Layout</body>", fileStream);
fileStream.close();

Or use convertFile() to convert a local HTML file: 

fileStream = new FileOutputStream("MyLayout.pdf");
client.convertFile("/path/to/MyLayout.html", fileStream);
fileStream.close();

Did you know ...

  • PDF supports security. The creator of a PDF file can set various security options. It is possible to protect a PDF so it can only be viewed with a password. It is also possible to forbid changing the content of a PDF or disable the option to print a PDF file.
  • PDF is a cross platform standard. Somebody can create a PDF file on a Linux workstation and you can open it on a PC or Mac and still see the document just like it was intended to be viewed.
  • PDF can embed used fonts and thus allow fonts to travel with the documents.

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