Laravel 8: How To Create PDF using DOMPDF

1. Create new Laravel Project

In your terminal execute

composer create-project laravel/laravel laravel-generate-pdf

2. Configure Database Credentials

Open your .env, add your credentials

3. Generate Fake Data

UserFactory comes by default in each new Laravel project, in this case, only we need to go to database/seeders/DatabaseSeeder.php and uncomment this line

\App\Models\User::factory(50)->create();

Execute php artisan migrate:fresh --seed

4. Install Laravel DOMPDF

Execute this command in your terminal

composer require barryvdh/laravel-dompdf

After updating composer, add the ServiceProvider to the providers array in config/app.php

Barryvdh\DomPDF\ServiceProvider::class,

You can optionally use the facade for shorter code. Add this to your facades:

'PDF' => Barryvdh\DomPDF\Facade::class,

5. Create User Controller

I'll create a new UserController, execute this command

php artisan make:controller UserController

After creating the controller open it and add this code

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\User;
use PDF;

class UserController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * Return Users data to users view
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function index()
    {
        $users = User::all();

        return view('users.index', compact('users'));
    }

    /**
     * Export content to PDF with View
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function downloadPdf()
    {
        $users = User::all();

       view()->share('users.pdf',$users);

        $pdf = PDF::loadView('users.pdf', ['users' => $users]);

        return $pdf->download('users.pdf');
    }
}

6. Adding routes

Let's go to routes/web.php add the code below

Route::get('/', [UserController::class, 'index']);

Route::get('download-pdf', [UserController::class, 'downloadPdf'])->name('download-pdf');

Note: Delete your current "/" view before adding users.index as new "/". Don't forgot to import your UserController

7. Create views

We need to create two views, users/index.blade.php, users/pdf.blade.php like this

In users/index.blade.php we need to add this code

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Laravel</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-ggOyR0iXCbMQv3Xipma34MD+dH/1fQ784/j6cY/iJTQUOhcWr7x9JvoRxT2MZw1T" crossorigin="anonymous">
</head>
  <body>
      <div class="container py-5">
          <div class="row">
              <div class="col-xl-12 text-right">
                  <a href="{{ route('download-pdf') }}" class="btn btn-success btn-sm">Export to PDF</a>
              </div>
          </div>

          <div class="card mt-4">
              <div class="card-header">
                    <h5 class="card-title font-weight-bold">DOMPDF Tutorial</h4>
              </div>

              <div class="card-body">
                    <table class="table table-bordered">
                        <thead>
                            <tr>
                                <th>Id</th>
                                <th>Name</th>
                                <th>Email</th>
                            </tr>
                        </thead>

                        <tbody>
                            @forelse ($users as $user)
                                <tr>
                                    <td>{{ $user->id }}</td>
                                    <td>{{ $user->name }}</td>
                                    <td>{{ $user->email }}</td>
                                </tr>
                            @empty

                            @endforelse
                        </tbody>
                    </table>
              </div>
          </div>
      </div>
  </body>
</html>

After that, you should see this code view

Now, we have to add the code of the PDF view, open resources/views/users/pdf.php

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
    <title>Laravel</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.3.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-ggOyR0iXCbMQv3Xipma34MD+dH/1fQ784/j6cY/iJTQUOhcWr7x9JvoRxT2MZw1T" crossorigin="anonymous">
    <style>
        table {
            font-size: 12px;
        }
    </style>
</head>

<body>
    <div class="container py-5">
        <h5 class=" font-weight-bold">DOMPDF Tutorial</h5>
        <table class="table table-bordered mt-5">
            <thead>
                <tr>
                    <th>Id</th>
                    <th>Name</th>
                    <th>Email</th>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                @forelse ($users as $user)
                <tr>
                    <td>{{ $user->id }}</td>
                    <td>{{ $user->name }}</td>
                    <td>{{ $user->email }}</td>
                </tr>
                @empty

                @endforelse
            </tbody>
        </table>
    </div>
</body>

</html>

We can try to generate the PDF by clicking the export button and if everything goes well you'll see

8. GitHub Repo

Link Generate PDF Tutorial

If you have any doubt leave a message in the comment section.

Happy coding ☕. Thanks for reading 🙏

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