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Published January 18, 2023

PDF Creator For Java (Step-By-Step) Tutorial

In this article, we will learn how you can create PDF files using a PDFCreator written in the Java programming language.

Creating PDF files using Java has many applications in the IT industry. Once in a while, developers may need a PDF Creator to be integrated into their projects. The PDF Creator we will be discussing in this article is IronPDF for Java. it helps developer to create new PDF documents from scratch and convert different file formats into PDF documents.

1. IronPDF for Java

IronPDF for Java is a Java library for creating, preparing, and managing PDF files. It allows developers to read, produce, and alter PDF files without needing to install any Adobe software.

IronPDF is also amazing at creating PDF forms from a PDF file. IronPDF for Java can create custom headers and footers, create signatures, add attachments, and add password encryption and security mechanisms. IronPDF also supports multithreading and asynchronous features for improved performance.

2. Prerequisites

Before we get started, there are some prerequisites that must be fulfilled to carry out PDF creation.

1. Java should be installed in the system and its path should be set in Environment Variables. Please refer to this link to install Java if you haven't already done so.
2. A good Java IDE should be installed like Eclipse or IntelliJ. To download Eclipse please visit this link, or please click on this link to install IntelliJ.
3. Maven should be integrated with the IDE before starting with PDF conversion. For a tutorial on installing Maven and integrating it into the environment, visit the following link.

3. IronPDF for Java Installation

Once all the prerequisites are fulfilled, installing IronPDF for Java is quite simple and easy, even for new Java developers.

In this article, we will use the JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA to install the library and execute the code examples.

First, open JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA and create a new Maven project.

A new window will appear. Enter the name of the project and click on finish.

After you click Finish, a new project will open to a pom.xml file. We will use this to add some Maven project dependencies.

Add the following dependencies in the pom.xml file.

<dependency>
   <groupId>com.ironsoftware</groupId>
   <artifactId>com.ironsoftware</artifactId>
   <version>2024.3.1</version>
</dependency>

Once you placed the dependencies in the pom.xml file, a small icon will appear in the right top corner of the file.

Click on this icon to install the Maven dependencies of IronPDF for Java. This will only take a few minutes, depending on your internet connection.

4. Creating PDF Files

In this section, we will discuss how to create new PDF documents using IronPDF for Java. IronPDF makes it very easy to create new PDF documents with just a few lines of code.

There are many different ways to create PDF files using IronPDF for Java. We can use the renderHtmlAsPdf method to convert an HTML string to a PDF file, the renderHtmlFileAsPdf method to convert HTML files into PDF documents, and the renderUrlAsPdf method to create PDF files directly from a URL, and save the result in a specified folder.

4.1. Create PDF Documents using an HTML String

The code example below shows how to use the renderHtmlAsPdf method to convert a string of HTML markup into a PDF. Note that using the renderHtmlAsPdf method requires basic knowledge of how HTML works.

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java .io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        License.setLicenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
        Settings.setLogPath(Paths.get("C:/tmp/IronPdfEngine.log"));
//string filename
        PdfDocument myPdf = PdfDocument.renderHtmlAsPdf("<h1> ~Hello World~ </h1> Made with IronPDF!");
//new FileOutputStream
        myPdf.saveAs(Paths.get("html_saved.pdf"));
    }
}

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java .io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        License.setLicenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
        Settings.setLogPath(Paths.get("C:/tmp/IronPdfEngine.log"));
//string filename
        PdfDocument myPdf = PdfDocument.renderHtmlAsPdf("<h1> ~Hello World~ </h1> Made with IronPDF!");
//new FileOutputStream
        myPdf.saveAs(Paths.get("html_saved.pdf"));
    }
}

The output of the above code is given below.

4.2. Create a PDF file from an HTML File

The IronPDF library's renderHtmlFileAsPdf method allows you to generate a new PDF file from an HTML source file. This method turns everything in an HTML document into a PDF, including graphics, CSS, forms, and so on.

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        License.setLicenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
        Settings.setLogPath(Paths.get("C:/tmp/IronPdfEngine.log"));
        PdfDocument myPdf = PdfDocument.renderHtmlFileAsPdf("index.html");
        myPdf.saveAs(Paths.get("html_saved.pdf"));
    }
}

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        License.setLicenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
        Settings.setLogPath(Paths.get("C:/tmp/IronPdfEngine.log"));
        PdfDocument myPdf = PdfDocument.renderHtmlFileAsPdf("index.html");
        myPdf.saveAs(Paths.get("html_saved.pdf"));
    }
}

The output of the above code example is given below.

4.3. Create PDF files from URLs

Using IronPDF, you can quickly create PDF from a web page's URL with excellent precision and accuracy. It also provides the ability to create PDF files from credential-locked websites.

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        License.setLicenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
        Settings.setLogPath(Paths.get("C:/tmp/IronPdfEngine.log"));
        PdfDocument myPdf = PdfDocument.renderUrlAsPdf("https://www.alibaba.com/");
        myPdf.saveAs(Paths.get("html_saved.pdf"));
    }
}

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        License.setLicenseKey("YOUR-LICENSE-KEY");
        Settings.setLogPath(Paths.get("C:/tmp/IronPdfEngine.log"));
        PdfDocument myPdf = PdfDocument.renderUrlAsPdf("https://www.alibaba.com/");
        myPdf.saveAs(Paths.get("html_saved.pdf"));
    }
}

The output of the above code is given below.

4.4. Create PDF Files from Images

IronPDF for Java can also0 create a PDF file from one or more images.

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        Path imageDirectory = Paths.get("assets/images");
        List<Path> imageFiles = new ArrayList<>();
        try (DirectoryStream<Path> stream = Files.newDirectoryStream(imageDirectory, "*.{png,jpg}")) {
            for (Path entry : stream) {
                imageFiles.add(entry);
            }          PdfDocument.fromImage(imageFiles).saveAs(Paths.get("assets/composite.pdf"));
        } catch (IOException exception) {
            throw new RuntimeException(String.format("Error converting images to PDF from directory: %s: %s",
                    imageDirectory,
                    exception.getMessage()),
                    exception);
        }
    }
}

import com.ironsoftware.ironpdf.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public class main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        Path imageDirectory = Paths.get("assets/images");
        List<Path> imageFiles = new ArrayList<>();
        try (DirectoryStream<Path> stream = Files.newDirectoryStream(imageDirectory, "*.{png,jpg}")) {
            for (Path entry : stream) {
                imageFiles.add(entry);
            }          PdfDocument.fromImage(imageFiles).saveAs(Paths.get("assets/composite.pdf"));
        } catch (IOException exception) {
            throw new RuntimeException(String.format("Error converting images to PDF from directory: %s: %s",
                    imageDirectory,
                    exception.getMessage()),
                    exception);
        }
    }
}

The output of the above code is given below.

5. Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed how you can create PDFs from scratch, or from already existing HTML files or URLs. IronPDF allows you to convert from several formats to produce a high-quality PDF and makes it very simple to manipulate and format these PDF files.

IronPDF is perfect for software developers and businesses who need to handle, modify or manipulate PDF files. To know more about IronPDF for Java and to get similar tutorials on how to manipulate PDF using Java, please refer to the following link. For a tutorial on creating PDF files using Java, please visit this link.

IronPDF for Java is free for development purposes but requires a license for commercial use. Get more additional information about licensing using the following link.