I am considering a project that would use PHP to place client information into a mySQL database. Once this data is obtained the information would then be placed into documents that would be printed. I understand that PHP can be used in conjunction with PDFlib to produce PDF documents. Has anyone used this combination (mySQL, PHP and PDFlib) who can share the results they had?

Also as a commercial license for PDFlib is rather pricey is PDFlib Lite suitable for this purpose? A tutorial I read indicated that PDFlib Lite is included with PHP installations of windows, although this doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe I'm missing something. If not can anyone patiently walk me through installing and configuring PDFlib Lite with PHP?

I haven't messed around with it much but, take a look at:

http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.pdf.php
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3168.html

Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by phpknowhow

I haven't messed around with it much but, take a look at:

http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.pdf.php
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3168.html

Hope that helps.

Thank you Phpknowhow. Yes that is some help. So is this document which the manual points too. But I still have some problems. Specifically I cannot locate the file libpdf_php.dll which I need to place in the php/ext/ directory. Also just where do place the the contents of PHPlib folder from the installation download?

Ok silly me. The files contained ain the PDFlib Lite download are sourse not binary. I downloaded an evaluation copy of PDFlib in binary form and promptly found the the libpdf_php.dll file. I am still having problems. When I run phpinfo() I get no information about pdfs. I think this might have something to do with the extensions_dir setting in php.ini. It is set at entensions_dir="./" which I understand to mean the libpdf_php.dll file should be in the same director as the php.in file (C:/php). Is this correct? Any other suggestions?

Originally Posted by GBG

It is set at entensions_dir="./" which I understand to mean the libpdf_php.dll file should be in the same director as the php.in file (C:/php). Is this correct?

Yes. You must place the dll in the extension directory. You must also, under Dynamic Extensions in php.ini, remove the ; before or add the line:

extension=libpdf_php.dll

Originally Posted by phpknowhow

Yes. You must place the dll in the extension directory. You must also, under Dynamic Extensions in php.ini, remove the ; before or add the line:

extension=libpdf_php.dll

Ok I've added the extension=lbpdf_php.dll to php.ini line. Still no PDF section appears when I run phpinfo(). I also tried running some php files using PDFlib in my browser, as I was uncertain what to look for in the phpinfo() page. I think it would have it's own section heading. Anyway, the files would not run.

I also changed tried C:/php/ext for the extensions_dir. I have place the libpdf_php.dll in both the C:/php and the C:/php/ext folders. Still nothing.

I think I'll put this away for a day and then come back. In the meantime if anyone has any further suggestion I would appreciate it.

After putting this project aside for a couple of days I came back to it today. I promptly saw the problem. In the php.ini file I had entered "extension=libpfd_php.dll" and not the proper "extension=libpdf_php.dll". Thanks again for your help phpknowhow. It worked just fine with that correction.

PDFlib needs a license for the kind of project you are talking about. Probably the only alternative is http://fpdf.org which is open source (freeware license), very stable and well documented, depending on the project something of mine might be suitable at http://deebee.eu

Philip.