How to Generate PDF Receipts from HTML in Java
In this post, you’ll learn how to generate PDF receipts from HTML using our Java PDF Generator API. With our API, you receive 100 credits with the free plan. Different operations on a document consume different amounts of credits, so the number of PDF documents you can generate may vary. To access your API key, sign up for a free account.
To help you get started, we’ve provided a free receipt template in HTML and CSS that can be customized to meet your specific requirements. You can easily style your receipts by updating the CSS file with your own custom images and fonts. For receipts that are longer than one page, you can add a header and footer that repeats across all your pages.
Requirements
To get started, you’ll need:
To access your PSPDFKit API key, sign up for a free account. Your account includes 100 credits, which can be used for various document operations. Once you’ve signed up, you can find your API key in the Dashboard > API Keys section.
This guide uses the latest version of Java Development Kit (JDK) — which is v17.0.1 — and Gradle v7.2.
You can find the example on GitHub.
Creating a New Gradle Project
Create a new Java project for Gradle to build.
Go to the build.gradle
file and add the following dependencies to your project:
dependencies { implementation 'com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.9.2' implementation 'org.json:json:20210307' }
You’ll use the OkHttp library to make HTTP requests to PSPDFKit API, and the org.json library to parse the JSON response.
Downloading the Receipt Template
Download the receipt template and extract the contents of the ZIP file into a folder. You’ll get an HTML file, Inter fonts, a Space Mono font, an SVG logo, and a README file. Place the files in the root directory of your project.
Preparing the Java Class
-
Create a new directory in your project. Right-click on your project’s name and select New > Directory.
-
From there, choose the
src/main/java
option.
-
Now, right-click on the
src/main/java
directory and select New > Java Class.
Create a new class called PSPDFKitApiExample
that will make HTTP requests to PSPDFKit API.
-
Add the following code to the
PSPDFKitApiExample
class:
// src/main/java/PSPDFKitApiExample.java import java.io.File; import java.io.IOException; import java.nio.file.FileSystems; import java.nio.file.Files; import java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption; import org.json.JSONArray; import org.json.JSONObject; import okhttp3.MediaType; import okhttp3.MultipartBody; import okhttp3.OkHttpClient; import okhttp3.Request; import okhttp3.RequestBody; import okhttp3.Response; public class PspdfkitApiExample { public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { // Implement your call to PSPDFKit API here. } }
Set this class as the entry point of your application.
Preparing the Payload
Here, assemble your multipart/form-data
body containing the JSON instructions, the HTML file, the stylesheet, the fonts, and the logo files:
final RequestBody body = new MultipartBody.Builder() .setType(MultipartBody.FORM) .addFormDataPart( "index.html", "index.html", RequestBody.create( new File("index.html"), MediaType.parse("text/html") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "style.css", "style.css", RequestBody.create( new File("style.css"), MediaType.parse("text/css") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "Inter-Regular.ttf", "Inter-Regular.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("Inter-Regular.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "Inter-Medium.ttf", "Inter-Medium.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("Inter-Medium.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "Inter-Bold.ttf", "Inter-Bold.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("Inter-Bold.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "SpaceMono-Regular.ttf", "SpaceMono-Regular.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("SpaceMono-Regular.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "logo.svg", "logo.svg", RequestBody.create( new File("logo.svg"), MediaType.parse("image/svg+xml") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "instructions", new JSONObject() .put("parts", new JSONArray() .put(new JSONObject() .put("html", "index.html") .put("assets", new JSONArray() .put("style.css") .put("Inter-Regular.ttf") .put("Inter-Medium.ttf") .put("Inter-Bold.ttf") .put("SpaceMono-Regular.ttf") .put("logo.svg") ) ) ).toString() ) .build();
Executing the Request
Now, make a request to PSPDFKit API. Make sure to replace the <Your API Key>
placeholder with your actual API key:
final Request request = new Request.Builder() .url("https://api.pspdfkit.com/build") .method("POST", body) .addHeader("Authorization", "Bearer <Your API Key>") .build(); final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient() .newBuilder() .build(); final Response response = client.newCall(request).execute(); if (response.isSuccessful()) { Files.copy( response.body().byteStream(), FileSystems.getDefault().getPath("result.pdf"), StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING ); } else { // Handle the error. throw new IOException(response.body().string()); }
This will send your request to PSPDFKit API and save the response to a file called result.pdf
.
To generate the PDF, right-click on the PSPDFKitApiExample
file and select Run PSPDFKitApiExample.main()
.
You can see the full code below:
import java.io.File; import java.io.IOException; import java.nio.file.FileSystems; import java.nio.file.Files; import java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption; import org.json.JSONArray; import org.json.JSONObject; import okhttp3.MediaType; import okhttp3.MultipartBody; import okhttp3.OkHttpClient; import okhttp3.Request; import okhttp3.RequestBody; import okhttp3.Response; public final class PspdfkitApiExample { public static void main(final String[] args) throws IOException { final RequestBody body = new MultipartBody.Builder() .setType(MultipartBody.FORM) .addFormDataPart( "index.html", "index.html", RequestBody.create( new File("index.html"), MediaType.parse("text/html") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "style.css", "style.css", RequestBody.create( new File("style.css"), MediaType.parse("text/css") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "Inter-Regular.ttf", "Inter-Regular.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("Inter-Regular.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "Inter-Medium.ttf", "Inter-Medium.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("Inter-Medium.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "Inter-Bold.ttf", "Inter-Bold.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("Inter-Bold.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "SpaceMono-Regular.ttf", "SpaceMono-Regular.ttf", RequestBody.create( new File("SpaceMono-Regular.ttf"), MediaType.parse("font/ttf") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "logo.svg", "logo.svg", RequestBody.create( new File("logo.svg"), MediaType.parse("image/svg+xml") ) ) .addFormDataPart( "instructions", new JSONObject() .put("parts", new JSONArray() .put(new JSONObject() .put("html", "index.html") .put("assets", new JSONArray() .put("style.css") .put("Inter-Regular.ttf") .put("Inter-Medium.ttf") .put("Inter-Bold.ttf") .put("SpaceMono-Regular.ttf") .put("logo.svg") ) ) ).toString() ) .build(); final Request request = new Request.Builder() .url("https://api.pspdfkit.com/build") .method("POST", body) .addHeader("Authorization", "Bearer <Your API Key>") .build(); final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient() .newBuilder() .build(); final Response response = client.newCall(request).execute(); if (response.isSuccessful()) { Files.copy( response.body().byteStream(), FileSystems.getDefault().getPath("result.pdf"), StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING ); } else { // Handle the error. throw new IOException(response.body().string()); } } }
Conclusion
In this post, you generated a PDF receipt from an HTML template using our Java PDF generation API. We created similar PDF receipt generation blog posts using sample code from other programming languages:
In addition to templates for generating receipts, we created free templates for other commonly used documents, like invoices, certificates, and reports. If you’re interested in generating other types of documents in Java, check out the following posts:
- Generating PDF invoices using Java
- Generating PDF certificates using Java
- Generating PDF reports using Java
All our templates are available for you to download on our PDF Generator API page. Feel free to customize or add any CSS to the template to fit your use case or help reflect your company’s brand.