README

Deterministic, colspan-aware table builder for TCPDF.

candid-pdf-table provides a clean, predictable API to construct HTML tables for TCPDF::writeHTML() using explicit, cell-owned borders and late layout computation.

This library is designed for programmatic table generation where precise control over rows, columns, colspans, borders, and serial numbering is required.

Why this library?

Building complex tables in TCPDF is difficult once HTML is rendered. This library solves that by:

Using a cell-centric model (each cell owns its borders & style)
Supporting colspan-aware addressing
Avoiding implicit or shared borders
Computing widths and layout only at render time
Keeping behavior deterministic and predictable

Features

Explicit, per-cell border control
Optional serial number column
Colspan-aware cell lookup
Header, item, row, and total rows
Percent-based column widths
Multi-line cell content via HTML
Designed specifically for TCPDF

Requirements

PHP 7.4+
TCPDF (must be available at runtime)

Installation

composer require hadleen/candid-pdf-table

Basic Usage

use Hadleen\TCPDF\Table\CandidPDFTable;

$pdf = new TCPDF();
$pdf->AddPage();

$table = new CandidPDFTable(3);
$table->showSerialNumber('S.NO', 8);

$table->addHeaderRow(['Item','Qty','Amount']);
$table->addItem(['Pen','2','20.00']);
$table->addItem(['Notebook','1','50.00']);
$table->addTotalRow('Total', 70.00);

$table->addTableBorder();
$table->render($pdf);

Serial Column

Enable serial numbering:

$table->showSerialNumber('S.NO', 8);

Serial column index = -1
Serial numbers appear only on item rows
Header shows caption
Total rows suppress serial values

Multi-line Cell Content

Use HTML tags such as <br>:

$table->getCellAt(2,1)->setText(
    'Laptop<br><small>Intel i7</small><br><small>16GB RAM</small>'
);

Newline characters (\n) are ignored by TCPDF.

Borders

$table->showLine(2,1,'bottom');
$table->setRowLines(1,'all',1);
$table->setColumnLines(-1,'left',1);
$table->setColumnLines(2,'right',1);
$table->addTableBorder();
$table->addOuterBorder();
$table->addInnerBorder();

Column Widths

$table->setColumnWidth(0,60);
$table->setColumnWidth(1,20);
$table->setColumnWidth(2,20);

Cell Addressing

Rows: 1-based
Data columns: 0-based
Serial column: -1

$table->getCellAt(2,0);
$table->getCellAt(2,-1);

Render Lifecycle

Layout is resolved only during render().

Versioning

Semantic Versioning is used.

Current version: v1.0.0

hadleen / candid-pdf-table

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