Chapter 16. iText PDF generation

Seam now includes an component set for generating documents using iText. The primary focus of Seam's iText document support is for the generation of PDF doucuments, but Seam also offers basic support for RTF document generation.

16.1. Using PDF Support

iText support is provided by jboss-seam-pdf.jar. This JAR contains the iText JSF controls, which are used to construct views that can render to PDF, and the DocumentStore component, which serves the rendered documents to the user. To include PDF support in your application, included jboss-seam-pdf.jar in your WEB-INF/lib directory along with the iText JAR file. There is no further configuration needed to use Seam's iText supportfon.

The Seam iText module requires the use of Facelets as the view technology. Future versions of the library may also support the use of JSP. Additionally, it requires the use of the seam-ui package.

The examples/itext project contains an example of the PDF support in action. It demonstrates proper deployment packaging, and it contains a number examples that demonstrate the key PDF generation features current supported.

16.1.1. Creating a document

<p:document>

Description

Documents are generated by facelets documents using tags in the http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf namespace. Documents should always have the document tag at the root of the document. The document tag prepares Seam to generate a document into the DocumentStore and renders an HTML redirect to that stored content.

Attributes

  • type — The type of the document to be produced. Valid values are PDF, RTF and HTML modes. Seam defaults to PDF generation, and many of the features only work correctly when generating PDF documents.

  • pageSize — The size of the page to be generate. The most commonly used values would be LETTER and A4. A full list of supported pages sizes can be found in com.lowagie.text.PageSize class. Alternatively, pageSize can provide the width and height of the page directly. The value "612 792", for example, is equivalent to the LETTER page size.

  • orientation — The orientation of the page. Valid values are portrait and landscape. In landscape mode, the height and width page size values are reversed.

  • margins — The left, right, top and bottom margin values.

  • marginMirroring — Indicates that margin settings should be reversed an alternating pages.

Metadata Attributes

  • title

  • subject

  • keywords

  • author

  • creator

Usage

<p:document xmlns:p="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf">                                                      
  The document goes here.                                                                                             
</p:document>

16.1.2. Basic Text Elements

Useful documents will need to contain more than just text; however, the standard UI components are geared towards HTML generation and are not useful for generating PDF content. Instead, Seam provides a special UI components for generating suitable PDF content. Tags like <p:image> and <p:paragraph> are the basic foundations of simple documents. Tags like <p:font> provide style information to all the content surrounging them.

<p:paragraph>

Description

Most uses of text should be sectioned into paragraphs so that text fragments can be flowed, formatted and styled in logical groups.

Attributes

  • firstLineIndent

  • extraParagraphSpace

  • leading

  • multipliedLeading

  • spacingBefore — The blank space to be inserted before the element.

  • spacingAfter — The blank space to be inserted after the element.

  • indentationLeft

  • indentationRight

  • keepTogether

Usage

<p:paragraph alignment="justify">
    This is a simple document.  It isn't very fancy.
</p:paragraph>

<p:text>

Description

The text tag allows text fragments to be produced from application data using normal JSF converter mechanisms. It is very similar to the outputText tag used when rendering HTML documents.

Attributes

  • value — The value to be displayed. This will typically be a value binding expression.

Usage

<p:paragraph>
    The item costs <p:text value="#{product.price}">
        <f:convertNumber type="currency" currencySymbol="$"/>
    </p:text>
</p:paragraph>

<p:font>

Description

The font tag defines the default font to be used for all text inside of it.

Attributes

  • name — The font name, for example: COURIER, HELVETICA, TIMES-ROMAN, SYMBOL or ZAPFDINGBATS.

  • size — The point size of the font.

  • style — The font styles. Any combination of : NORMAL, BOLD, ITALIC, OBLIQUE, UNDERLINE, LINE-THROUGH

  • encoding — The character set encoding.

Usage

<p:font family="courier" style="bold" size="24">
    <p:paragraph>My Title</p:paragraph>
</p:font>

<p:newPage>

Description

p:newPage inserts a page break.

Usage

<p:newPage />

<p:image>

Description

p:image inserts an image into the document. Images can be be loaded from the classpath or from the web application context using the value attribute.

Resources can also be dynamically generated by application code. The imageData attribute can specify a value binding expression whose value is a java.awt.Image object.

Attributes

  • value — A resource name or a method expression binding to an application-generated image.

  • rotation — The rotation of the image in degrees.

  • height — The height of the image.

  • width — The width of the image.

  • alignment— The alignment of the image. (see Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for possible values)

  • alt — Alternative text representation for the image.

  • indentationLeft

  • indentationRight

  • spacingBefore — The blank space to be inserted before the element.

  • spacingAfter — The blank space to be inserted after the element.

  • widthPercentage

  • initialRotation

  • dpi

  • scalePercent — The scaling factor (as a percentage) to use for the image. This can be expressed as a single percentage value or as two percentage values representing separate x and y scaling percentages.

  • wrap

  • underlying

Usage

<p:image value="/jboss.jpg" />
<p:image value="#{images.chart}" />

<p:anchor>

Description

p:anchor defines clickable links from a document. It supports the following attributes:

Attributes

  • name — The name of an in-document anchor destination.

  • reference — The destination the link refers to. Links to other points in the document should begin with a "#". For example, "#link1" to refer to an anchor postion with a name of link1. Links may also be a full URL to point to a resource outside of the document.

Usage

<p:listItem><p:anchor reference="#reason1">Reason 1</p:anchor></p:listItem> 
...
<p:paragraph>
    <p:anchor name="reason1">It's the quickest way to get "rich"</p:anchor> 
    ... 
</p:paragraph>

16.1.3. Headers and Footers

<p:header>

<p:footer>

Description

The p:header and p:footer components provide the ability to place header and footer text on each page of a generated document, with the exception of the first page. Header and footer declarations should appear near the top of a document.

Attributes

  • alignment — The alignment of the header/footer box section. (see Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for alignment values)

  • backgroundColor — The background color of the header/footer box. (see Section 16.1.7.1, “Color Values” for color values)

  • borderColor — The border color of the header/footer box. Individual border sides can be set using borderColorLeft, borderColorRight, borderColorTop and borderColorBottom.(see Section 16.1.7.1, “Color Values” for color values)

  • borderWidth — The width of the border. Inidvidual border sides can be specified using borderWidthLeft, borderWidthRight, borderWidthTop and borderWidthBottom.

Usage

<p:facet name="header">
  <p:font size="12">
    <p:footer borderWidthTop="1" borderColorTop="blue" 
              borderWidthBottom="0" alignment="center">
        Why Seam? [<p:pageNumber />]
    </p:footer>
  </p:font>
</f:facet>

<p:pageNumber>

Description

The current page number can be placed inside of a header or footer using the p:pageNumber tag. The page number tag can only be used in the context of a header or footer and can only be used once.

Usage

<p:footer borderWidthTop="1" borderColorTop="blue" 
          borderWidthBottom="0" alignment="center">
    Why Seam? [<p:pageNumber />]
</p:footer>

16.1.4. Chapters and Sections

<p:chapter>

<p:section>

Description

If the generated document follows a book/article structure, the p:chapter and p:section tags can be used to provide the necessary structure. Sections can only be used inside of chapters, but they may be nested arbitrarily deep. Most PDF viewers provide easy navigation between chapters and sections in a document.

Attributes

  • alignment — The alignment of the header/footer box section. (see Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for alignment values)

  • number — The chapter number. Every chapter should be assigned a chapter number.

  • numberDepth — The depth of numbering for section. All sections are numbered relative to their surrounding chapter/sections. The fourth section of of the first section of chapter three would be section 3.1.4, if displayed at the default number depth of three. To omit the chapter number, a number depth of 2 should be used. In that case, the section number would be displayed as 1.4.

Usage

<p:document xmlns:p="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf"
            title="Hello">

   <p:chapter number="1">
      <p:title><p:paragraph>Hello</p:paragraph></p:title>
      <p:paragraph>Hello #{user.name}!</p:paragraph>
   </p:chapter>

   <p:chapter number="2">
      <p:title><p:paragraph>Goodbye</p:paragraph></p:title>
      <p:paragraph>Goodbye #{user.name}.</p:paragraph>
   </p:chapter>

</p:document> 

<p:header>

Description

Any chapter or section can contain a p:title. The title will be displayed next to the chapter/section number. The body of the title may contain raw text or may be a p:paragraph.

16.1.5. Lists

List structures can be displayed using the p:list and p:listItem tags. Lists may contain arbitrarily-nested sublists. List items may not be used outside of a list. he following document uses the ui:repeat tag to to display a list of values retrieved from a Seam component.

<p:document xmlns:p="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf"
            xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
            title="Hello">
   <p:list style="numbered">
      <ui:repeat value="#{documents}" var="doc">
         <p:listItem>#{doc.name}</p:listItem>
      </ui:repeat>
   </p:list>
</p:document>

<p:list>

Attributes

  • style — The ordering/bulleting style of list. One of: NUMBERED, LETTERED, GREEK, ROMAN, ZAPFDINGBATS, ZAPFDINGBATS_NUMBER. If no style is given, the list items are bulleted.

  • listSymbol — For bulleted lists, specifies the bullet symbol.

  • indent — The indentation level of the list.

  • lowerCase — For list styles using letters, indicates whether the letters should be lower case.

  • charNumber — For ZAPFDINGBATS, indicates the character code of the bullet character.

  • numberType — For ZAPFDINGBATS_NUMBER, indicates the numbering style.

Usage

<p:list style="numbered">
  <ui:repeat value="#{documents}" var="doc">
    <p:listItem>#{doc.name}</p:listItem>
  </ui:repeat>
</p:list>

<p:listItem>

Description

p:listItem supports the following attributes:

Attributes

  • alignment — The alignment of the header/footer box section. (see Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for alignment values)

  • alignment — The alignment of the list item. (See Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for possible values)

  • indentationLeft — The left indentation amount.

  • indentationRight — The right indentation amount.

  • listSymbol — Overrides the default list symbol for this list item.

Usage

...

16.1.6. Tables

Table structures can be created using the p:table and p:cell tags. Unlike many table structures, there is no explicit row declaration. If a table has 3 columns, then every 3 cells will automatically form a row. Header and footer rows can be declared, and the headers and footers will be repeated in the event a table structure spans multiple pages.

<p:table>

Description

p:table supports the following attributes.

Attributes

  • columns — The number of columns (cells) that make up a table row.

  • widths — The relative widths of each column. There should be one value for each column. For example: widths="2 1 1" would indicate that there are 3 columns and the first column should be twice the size of the second and third column.

  • headerRows — The initial number of rows which are considered to be headers or footer rows and should be repeated if the table spans multiple pages.

  • footerRows — The number of rows that are considered to be footer rows. This value is subtracted from the headerRows value. If document has 2 rows which make up the header and one row that makes up the footer, headerRows should be set to 3 and footerRows should be set to 1

  • widthPercentage — The percentage of the page width that the table spans.

  • horizontalAlignment — The horizontal alignment of the table. (See Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for possible values)

  • skipFirstHeader

  • runDirection

  • lockedWidth

  • splitRows

  • spacingBefore — The blank space to be inserted before the element.

  • spacingAfter — The blank space to be inserted after the element.

  • extendLastRow

  • headersInEvent

  • splitLate

  • keepTogether

Usage

<p:table columns="3" headerRows="1">
  <p:cell>name</p:cell>
  <p:cell>owner</p:cell>
  <p:cell>size</p:cell>
  <ui:repeat value="#{documents}" var="doc">
    <p:cell>#{doc.name}</p:cell>
    <p:cell>#{doc.user.name}</p:cell>
    <p:cell>#{doc.size}</p:cell>
  </ui:repeat>
</p:table>

<p:cell>

Description

p:cell supports the following attributes.

Attributes

  • colspan — Cells can span more than one column by declaring a colspan greater than 1. Tables do not have the ability to span across multiple rows.

  • horizontalAlignment — The horizontal alignment of the cell. (see Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for possible values)

  • verticalAlignment — The vertical alignment of the cell. (see Section 16.1.7.2, “Alignment Values” for possible values)

  • padding — Padding on a given side can also be specified using paddingLeft, paddingRight, paddingTop and paddingBottom.

  • useBorderPadding

  • leading

  • multipliedLeading

  • indent

  • verticalAlignment

  • extraParagraphSpace

  • fixedHeight

  • noWrap

  • minimumHeight

  • followingIndent

  • rightIndent

  • spaceCharRatio

  • runDirection

  • arabicOptions

  • useAscender

  • grayFill

  • rotation

Usage

<p:cell>...</p:cell>

16.1.7. Document Constants

This section documents some of the constants shared by attributes on multiple tags.

16.1.7.1. Color Values

Seam documents do not yet support a full color specification. Currently, only named colors are supported. They are: white, gray, lightgray, darkgray, black, red, pink, yellow, green, magenta, cyan and blue.

16.1.7.2. Alignment Values

Where alignment values are used, the Seam PDF supports the following horizontal alignment values: left, right, center, justify and justifyall. The vertical alignment values are top, middle, bottom, and baseline.

16.1.8. Configuring iText

Document generation works out of the box with no additional configuration needed. However, there are a few points of configuration that are needed for more serious applications.

The default implementation serves PDF documents from a generic URL, /seam-doc.seam. Many browsers (and users) would prefer to see URLs that contain the actual PDF name like /myDocument.pdf. This capability requires some configuration. To serve PDF files, all *.pdf resources should be mapped to the Seam Servlet Filter and to the DocumentStoreServlet:

<filter>
    <filter-name>Seam Servlet Filter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamServletFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>Seam Servlet Filter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>*.pdf</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>Document Store Servlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.jboss.seam.pdf.DocumentStoreServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>Document Store Servlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.pdf</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

The useExtensions option on the document store component completes the functionality by instructing the document store to generate URLs with the correct filename extension for the document type being generated.

<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
            xmlns:pdf="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf">
    <pdf:documentStore useExtensions="true" />
</components>

Generated documents are stored in conversation scope and will expire when the conversation ends. At that point, references to the document will be invalid. To You can specify a default view to be shown when a document does not exist using the errorPage property of the documentStore.

<pdf:documentStore useExtensions="true" errorPage="/pdfMissing.seam" />

16.2. Charting

<p:barchart>

Description

Displays a bar chart.

Attributes

  • borderVisible — Controls whether or not a border is displayed around the entire chart.

  • borderPaint — The color of the border, if visible;

  • borderBackgroundPaint — The default background color of the chart.

  • borderStroke

  • domainAxisLabel — The text label for the domain axis.

  • domainAxisPaint — The color of the domain axis label.

  • domainGridlinesVisible— Controls whether or not gridlines for the domain axis are shown on the chart.

  • domainGridlinePaint— The color of the domain gridlines, if visible.

  • domainGridlineStroke — The stroke style of the domain gridleines, if visible.

  • height — The height of the chart.

  • width — The width of the chart.

  • is3D — A boolean value indicating that the chart should be rendered in 3D instead of 2D.

  • legend — A boolean value indicating whether or not the chart should include a legend.

  • legendItemPaint— The default color of the text labels in the legend.

  • legendItemBackgoundPaint— The background color for the legend, if different from the chart background color.

  • orientation — The orientation of the plot, either vertical (the default) or horizontal.

  • plotBackgroundPaint— The color of the plot background.

  • plotBackgroundAlpha— The alpha (transparency) level of the plot background. It should be a number between 0 (completely transparent) and 1 (completely opaque).

  • plotForegroundAlpha— The alpha (transparency) level of the plot. It should be a number between 0 (completely transparent) and 1 (completely opaque).

  • plotOutlinePaint— The color of the range gridlines, if visible.

  • plotOutlineStroke — The stroke style of the range gridleines, if visible.

  • rangeAxisLabel — The text label for the range axis.

  • rangeAxisPaint — The color of the range axis label.

  • rangeGridlinesVisible— Controls whether or not gridlines for the range axis are shown on the chart.

  • rangeGridlinePaint— The color of the range gridlines, if visible.

  • rangeGridlineStroke — The stroke style of the range gridleines, if visible.

  • title — The chart title text.

  • titlePaint— The color of the chart title text.

  • titleBackgroundPaint— The background color around the chart title.

  • width — The width of the chart.

Usage

<p:barchart title="Bar Chart" legend="true"
            width="500" height="500">
    <p:series key="Last Year">
        <p:data columnKey="Joe" value="100" />
        <p:data columnKey="Bob" value="120" />
    </p:series>        <p:series key="This Year">
        <p:data columnKey="Joe" value="125" />
        <p:data columnKey="Bob" value="115" />
    </p:series>
</p:barchart>                                
                            

<p:linechart>

Description

Displays a line chart.

Attributes

  • borderVisible — Controls whether or not a border is displayed around the entire chart.

  • borderPaint — The color of the border, if visible;

  • borderBackgroundPaint — The default background color of the chart.

  • borderStroke

  • domainAxisLabel — The text label for the domain axis.

  • domainAxisPaint — The color of the domain axis label.

  • domainGridlinesVisible— Controls whether or not gridlines for the domain axis are shown on the chart.

  • domainGridlinePaint— The color of the domain gridlines, if visible.

  • domainGridlineStroke — The stroke style of the domain gridleines, if visible.

  • height — The height of the chart.

  • width — The width of the chart.

  • is3D — A boolean value indicating that the chart should be rendered in 3D instead of 2D.

  • legend — A boolean value indicating whether or not the chart should include a legend.

  • legendItemPaint— The default color of the text labels in the legend.

  • legendItemBackgoundPaint— The background color for the legend, if different from the chart background color.

  • orientation — The orientation of the plot, either vertical (the default) or horizontal.

  • plotBackgroundPaint— The color of the plot background.

  • plotBackgroundAlpha— The alpha (transparency) level of the plot background. It should be a number between 0 (completely transparent) and 1 (completely opaque).

  • plotForegroundAlpha— The alpha (transparency) level of the plot. It should be a number between 0 (completely transparent) and 1 (completely opaque).

  • plotOutlinePaint— The color of the range gridlines, if visible.

  • plotOutlineStroke — The stroke style of the range gridleines, if visible.

  • rangeAxisLabel — The text label for the range axis.

  • rangeAxisPaint — The color of the range axis label.

  • rangeGridlinesVisible— Controls whether or not gridlines for the range axis are shown on the chart.

  • rangeGridlinePaint— The color of the range gridlines, if visible.

  • rangeGridlineStroke — The stroke style of the range gridleines, if visible.

  • title — The chart title text.

  • titlePaint— The color of the chart title text.

  • titleBackgroundPaint— The background color around the chart title.

  • width — The width of the chart.

Usage

<p:linechart title="Line Chart"
            width="500" height="500">
    <p:series key="Prices">
        <p:data columnKey="2003" value="7.36" />
        <p:data columnKey="2004" value="11.50" />
        <p:data columnKey="2005" value="34.625" />
        <p:data columnKey="2006" value="76.30" />
        <p:data columnKey="2007" value="85.05" />
    </p:series>
</p:linechart>

<p:piechart>

Description

Displays a pie chart.

Attributes

  • title

  • label

  • legend

  • is3D

  • labelLinkMargin

  • labelLinkPaint

  • labelLinkStroke

  • labelLinksVisible

  • labelOutlinePaint

  • labelOutlineStroke

  • labelShadowPaint

  • labelPaint

  • labelGap

  • labelBackgroundPaint

  • startAngle

  • circular

  • direction

  • sectionOutlinePaint

  • sectionOutlineStroke

  • sectionOutlinesVisible

  • baseSectionOutlinePaint

  • baseSectionPaint

  • baseSectionOutlineStroke

Usage

<p:series>

Description

Category data can be broken down into series. The series tag is used to categorize a set of data with a series and apply styling to the entire series.

Attributes

  • key — The series name.

  • seriesPaint — The color of each item in the series

  • seriesOutlinePaint — The outline color for each item in the series.

  • seriesOutlineStroke — The stroke used to draw each item in the series.

  • seriesVisible — A boolean indicating if the series should be displayed.

  • seriesVisibleInLegend — A boolean indiciating if the series should be listed in the legend.

Usage

<p:series key="data1">
    <ui:repeat value="#{data.pieData1}" var="item">
        <p:data columnKey="#{item.name}" value="#{item.value}" />
    </ui:repeat>
</p:series>

<p:data>

Description

The data tag describes each data point to be displayed in the graph.

Attributes

  • key — The name of the data item.

  • series — The series name, when not embedded inside a <p:series>.

  • value — The numeric data value.

  • explodedPercent — For pie charts, indicates how exploded a from the pie a piece is.

  • sectionOutlinePaint — For bar charts, the color of the section outline.

  • sectionOutlineStroke — For bar charts, the stroke type for the section outline.

  • sectionPaint — For bar charts, the color of the section.

Usage

<p:data key="foo" value="20" sectionPaint="#111111" 
        explodedPercent=".2" />
<p:data key="bar" value="30" sectionPaint="#333333" />
<p:data key="baz" value="40" sectionPaint="#555555" 
        sectionOutlineStroke="my-dot-style" />

<p:color>

Description

The color component declares a color or gradient than can be referenced when drawing filled shapes.

Attributes

  • color — The color value. For gradient colors, this the starting color. Section 16.1.7.1, “Color Values”

  • color2 — For gradient colors, this is the color that ends the gradient.

  • point — The co-ordinates where the gradient color begins.

  • point2 — The co-ordinates where the gradient color ends.

Usage

<p:color id="foo" color="#0ff00f"/>
<p:color id="bar" color="#ff00ff" color2="#00ff00" 
                  point="50 50" point2="300 300"/>  

<p:stroke>

Description

Describes a stroke used to draw lines in a chart.

Attributes

  • width — The width of the stroke.

  • cap — The line cap type. Valid values are butt, round and square

  • join — The line join type. Valid values are miter, round and bevel

  • miterLimit — For miter joins, this value is the limit of the size of the join.

  • dash — The dash value sets the dash pattern to be used to draw the line. The space separated integers indicate the length of each alternating drawn and undrawn segments.

  • dashPhase — The dash phase indicates the offset into the dash pattern that the the line should be drawn with.

Usage

<p:stroke id="dot2" width="2" cap="round" join="bevel" dash="2 3" />                            

16.3. Bar codes

...

<p:barcode>

Description

Attributes

  • type

  • code

  • xpos

  • ypos

  • rotDegrees

  • barHeight

  • textSize

  • minBarWidth

  • barMultiplier

Usage

16.4. Further documentation

For further information on iText, see: