Generate PDF files from PHP

For a web project I needed to create invoices, to be downloaded or e-mailed to clients in PDF format. The platform is PHP and the documentation for this almost exclusively describe PDFLib for this purpose. I am sure PDFLib is fine, and the tutorials that come with the package looks really good.

But..

You pay for PDFLib – I don’t mind paying for software, you should pay for usable high-quality stuff, which I am sure PDFLib is. US$ 995 is a little steep though – compared to free. The FAQ however mentions a few free alternatives. Right now I am looking into FPDF – which seem to do the trick.

Actually I found out that my previous ISP (invoicing their customers only by PDF invoices via E-mail) use FPDF. This tells me that FPDF is more than ready for production. I’ll let you know if I something disappoints me – although I would hate to bash a truly free initiative such as this one. Oh – and by the way it has another edge to PDFLib – It is written in PFP and does not need server reconfiguration to work. If you want a head start, there are quite an extensive list of code examples available.