NAME

PDF::Table - A utility class for building table layouts in a PDF::API2 object.

SYNOPSIS

 use PDF::API2;
 use PDF::Table;

 my $pdftable = new PDF::Table;
 my $pdf = new PDF::API2(-file => "table_of_lorem.pdf");
 my $page = $pdf->page;

 # some data to layout
 my $some_data =[
        ["1 Lorem ipsum dolor",
        "Donec odio neque, faucibus vel",
        "consequat quis, tincidunt vel, felis."],
        ["Nulla euismod sem eget neque.",
        "Donec odio neque",
        "Sed eu velit."],
        ... and so on
 ];

 # build the table layout
 $pdftable->table(
         # required params
         $pdf,
         $page,
         $some_data,
         -x  => $left_edge_of_table,
         -start_y => 500,
         -next_y => 700,
         -start_h => 300,
         -next_h => 500,
         # some optional params
         -w => 570,
         -padding => 5,
         -padding_right => 10,
         -background_color_odd => "gray",
         -background_color_even => "lightblue", #cell background color for even rows
  );

 # do other stuff with $pdf
...

DESCRIPTION

This class is a utility for use with the PDF::API2 module from CPAN. It can be used to display text data in a table layout within the PDF. The text data must be in a 2d array (such as returned by a DBI statement handle fetchall_arrayref() call). The PDF::Table will automatically add as many new pages as necessary to display all of the data. Various layout properties, such as font, font size, and cell padding and background color can be specified for each column and/or for even/odd rows. See the METHODS section.

METHODS

new

Returns an instance of the class. There are no parameters.

table($pdf, $page_obj, $data, %opts)

 The main method of this class. Takes a PDF::API2 instance, a page instance, some data to build the table and formatting options. The formatting options should be passed as named parameters. This method will add more pages to the pdf instance as required based on the formatting options and the amount of data.

 The return value is a 3 item list where the first item is the PDF::API2::Page instance that the table ends on, the second item is the count of pages that the table spans, and the third item is the y position of the table bottom.

Example:

 ($end_page,$pages_spanned, $table_bot_y) = $pdftable->table(
         $pdf, # A PDF::API2 instance
         $page_to_start_on,  # A PDF::API2::Page instance that the table will start on. Should be a child of the $pdf instance
         $data, # 2D arrayref of text strings
         -x  => $left_edge_of_table,
         -start_y   => $baseline_of_first_line_on_first_page,
         -next_y   => $baseline_of_first_line_on_succeeding_pages,
         -start_h   => $height_on_first_page,
         -next_h => $height_on_succeeding_pages,
         [-w  => 570,] # width of table. technically optional, but almost always a good idea to use
         [-padding => "5",] # cell padding
         [-padding_top => "10",] #top cell padding, overides -pad
         [-padding_right  => "10",] #right cell padding, overides -pad
         [-padding_left  => "10",] #left padding padding, overides -pad
         [-padding_bottom  => "10",] #bottom padding, overides -pad
         [-border  => 1,] # border width, default 1, use 0 for no border
         [-border_color => "red",] # default black
         [-font  => $pdf->corefont("Helvetica", -encoding => "latin1"),] # default font
         [-font_size => 12,]
         [-font_color_odd => "purple",]
         [-font_color_even => "black",]
         [-background_color_odd => "gray",] #cell background color for odd rows
         [-background_color_even => "lightblue",] #cell background color for even rows
         [-column_props => $col_props] # see below
 )

 If the -column_props parameter is used, it should be an arrayref of hashrefs, with one hashref for each column of the table. Each hashref can contain any of keys shown here:

  $col_props = [
        {
                width => 100,
                justify => "[left|right|center]",
                font => $pdf->corefont("Times", -encoding => "latin1"),
                font_size => 10
                font_color=> "red"
                background_color => "yellow",
        },
        # etc.
  ];

 If the "width" parameter is used for -col_props, it should be specified for every column and the sum of these should be exactly equal to the -w parameter, otherwise Bad Things may happen. In cases of a conflict between column formatting and odd/even row formatting, the former will override the latter.

text_block($txtobj,$string,-x => $x, -y => $y, -w => $width, -h => $height)

Utility method to create a block of text. The block may contain multiple paragraphs.

Example:

 # PDF::API2 objects
 my $page = $pdf->page;
 my $txt = $page->text;

 ($width_of_last_line, $ypos_of_last_line, $left_over_text) = $pdftable->text_block(
    $txt,
    $text_to_place,
    -x        => $left_edge_of_block,
    -y        => $baseline_of_first_line,
    -w        => $width_of_block,
    -h        => $height_of_block,
   [-lead     => $font_size * 1.2 | $distance_between_lines,]
   [-parspace => 0 | $extra_distance_between_paragraphs,]
   [-align    => "left|right|center|justify|fulljustify",]
   [-hang     => $optional_hanging_indent,]
 );

AUTHOR

Daemmon Hughes

VERSION

0.02

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2006 by Daemmon Hughes, portions Copyright 2004 Stone Environmental Inc. (www.stone-env.com) All Rights Reserved.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.4 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

PLUGS

Much of the work on this module was sponsered by Stone Environmental Inc. (www.stone-env.com).

The text_block() method is a slightly modified copy of the one from Rick Measham's PDF::API2 tutorial at http://pdfapi2.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/view/Main/YourFirstDocument

SEE ALSO

PDF::API2

cpanm PDF::Table

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install PDF::Table