README

Laravel PDF generation package modeled after Crystal Reports: define a Page Header, a Page Body (the repeating detail section), a Group Footer (totals/signature, printed once and pinned to the bottom of the page it lands on) and a Page Footer. RC PDF renders the header/footer on every page while the body content flows continuously across as many pages as needed. Built on mPDF, which has native support for repeating HTML headers/footers.

Installation

composer require rajchotaliya/rc-pdf

The service provider and RcPdf facade are auto-discovered.

Publish the config (optional):

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=rc-pdf-config

Publish the example header/body/footer views (optional):

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=rc-pdf-views

Usage

use RajChotaliya\RcPdf\Facades\RcPdf;

$pdf = RcPdf::header('reports.invoice.header', ['title' => 'Invoice #1029'])
    ->view('reports.invoice.body', ['rows' => $items])
    ->footer('reports.invoice.footer', ['footerText' => 'Confidential'])
    ->paper('A4', 'portrait')
    ->margins(['top' => 40, 'bottom' => 25]);

return $pdf->download('invoice-1029.pdf');

Other output options:

$pdf->stream('invoice.pdf');   // inline in the browser
$pdf->save('invoices/1029.pdf'); // save to a Laravel Storage disk
$pdf->output();                // raw PDF string

You can also skip Blade views and pass raw HTML directly:

RcPdf::headerHtml('<h1>Header</h1>')
    ->html('<p>Body</p>')
    ->footerHtml('<div>Page {PAGENO} of {nbpg}</div>')
    ->download();

Page bands

Method	Crystal Reports equivalent	Renders
`header()` / `headerHtml()`	Page Header	Repeats on every page, above the body
`header($view, $data, once: true)`	Report Header	Once, at the top of page 1 only
`view()` / `html()`	Details / Page Body	Flows across pages between header and footer
`groupFooter()` / `groupFooterHtml()`	Group Footer	Once, pinned to the bottom of the page it falls on
`footer()` / `footerHtml()`	Page Footer	Repeats on every page, below the body

mPDF footer placeholders like {PAGENO} (current page) and {nbpg} (total pages) work out of the box inside footer()/footerHtml() views — handy for a Crystal-Reports-style "Page X of Y". Note: those placeholders only get substituted inside a repeating header/footer (registered with mPDF as such) — a once: true header is just plain body content, so {PAGENO}/{nbpg} are printed literally there, not replaced.

Report Header (first page only)

For a rich header (logo, addresses, doc info) that should print once at the top of page 1 rather than repeat on every page:

$pdf->header('invoice.header', $data, once: true)
    ->view('invoice.body', $data)
    ->footer('invoice.footer', $data) // still repeats on every page
    ->margins(['top' => 15, 'header' => 0]); // no need to reserve header space anymore

If you still want a simple repeating element on continuation pages (e.g. column titles for a long item table), put it in a <thead> inside your body's table — mPDF automatically repeats <thead> rows at the top of every page a table spans (see resources/views/stubs/body.blade.php).

Group footer (pinned to the bottom of the page, last page only)

A Crystal Reports Group Footer (totals, signature block, etc.) is different from the Page Footer: it's not repeated on every page — it prints once, right after the last detail row — but it should still sit flush against the bottom of whichever page it lands on, not float directly under the last row, and never eat into the space of earlier pages.

$pdf->view('invoice.body', ['rows' => $items])
    ->groupFooter('invoice.group-footer', $totals);

Under the hood (RcPdf::writeGroupFooter()), after the body finishes writing:

It measures the group footer's rendered height with mPDF's own layout engine.
If it fits in the space remaining on the current page (above the Page Footer), it's pinned there via position: absolute — no reserved blank space needed on earlier pages, so the Detail rows keep flowing continuously right up to wherever they naturally end.
If it doesn't fit, a fresh page is started first (<pagebreak margin-bottom="...">, sized to fit it), and it's pinned to the bottom of that new page instead — it never overlaps the last few rows or the Page Footer.

You don't need to reserve extra bottom margin yourself — just keep margins(['bottom' => ...]) sized for the Page Footer alone (e.g. 20).

Paper & margins

$pdf->paper('A4', 'landscape');
$pdf->margins([
    'top' => 40,     // must be >= header height
    'bottom' => 30,  // must be >= footer height
    'left' => 15,
    'right' => 15,
    'header' => 8,   // gap between header and body
    'footer' => 8,   // gap between body and footer
]);

Defaults live in config/rc-pdf.php and can be overridden per-PDF via paper()/margins(), or globally via .env (RC_PDF_FORMAT, RC_PDF_ORIENTATION).

Advanced mPDF options

Any raw mPDF constructor option can be passed through:

$pdf->options(['mode' => 'utf-8', 'tempDir' => storage_path('app/rc-pdf/tmp')]);

// Need direct access to the underlying Mpdf instance (e.g. to add a watermark)?
$mpdf = $pdf->mpdf();
$mpdf->SetWatermarkText('DRAFT');
$mpdf->showWatermarkText = true;

Testing

composer install
vendor/bin/phpunit

rajchotaliya / rc-pdf

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