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tecnickcom/tcpdf

★ 4,546PHPAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5LicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

TCPDF is a PHP library for generating PDF files from code, supporting text, images, barcodes, and forms, now deprecated in favor of its successor tc-lib-pdf.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((TCPDF))
    What it does
      Generate PDFs
      No dependencies
      PHP only
    Features
      International text
      Barcodes and QR
      HTML to PDF
      Encryption
    Status
      Deprecated
      Maintenance only
      Successor tc-lib-pdf
    Audience
      PHP developers
      Legacy projects
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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Generate invoice PDFs from a PHP web application without any external programs.

USE CASE 2

Create PDF reports with tables, images, and barcodes in an existing PHP project.

USE CASE 3

Maintain a legacy PHP application that already uses TCPDF without migrating immediately.

Tech stack

PHP

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

Deprecated, new projects should use tc-lib-pdf instead.

Use in open-source or commercial projects, but any modifications to the library itself must be shared back under the same license.

In plain English

TCPDF is a PHP library that lets developers create PDF files directly from their code, without any external programs or system dependencies beyond PHP itself. It has been available for many years and is used across a wide range of PHP-based websites and applications. A developer adds it to a project and then calls its functions to build up a PDF document page by page, adding text, images, tables, and graphics. The feature set is broad. It handles international text including right-to-left scripts like Arabic and Hebrew, supports many font formats, can render a subset of HTML and CSS into PDF layout, and generates barcodes including QR codes. It also covers more specialized needs like PDF encryption, digital signatures, PDF/A output for archiving, annotations, and fillable forms. Importantly, TCPDF is now marked as deprecated. The author has stopped adding new features to it and only keeps it in maintenance mode for critical fixes. New projects are directed to a successor library called tc-lib-pdf, which is built with a more modern code structure. Teams already using TCPDF in production are advised to keep it for now and migrate gradually, since switching requires testing to make sure PDFs render identically. The library is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3, which permits use in both open-source and commercial projects as long as modifications to the library itself are shared back. It requires PHP 7.1 or later and optionally uses a few common PHP extensions for richer image handling. If you are starting a new PHP project that needs to generate PDFs, the README explicitly recommends using the newer tc-lib-pdf package instead of this one. TCPDF remains available mainly to support existing systems that already depend on it.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Using TCPDF, write PHP code to generate a simple invoice PDF with a company header, item table, and total.
Prompt 2
How do I add a QR code to a PDF using TCPDF in PHP?
Prompt 3
Help me convert a block of HTML with CSS styling into a PDF using TCPDF's HTML renderer.
Prompt 4
Show me how to add password protection and a digital signature to a PDF with TCPDF.
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