iText - Adding a List

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In this chapter, we will see how to create a PDF document and add a list to it using the iText library.

Creating a List

You can create an empty PDF Document by instantiating the Document class. While instantiating this class, you need to pass a PdfDocument object as a parameter, to its constructor. Then, to add a list to the document, you need to instantiate the List class and add this object to the document using the add() method.

Following are the steps to create a PDF document and add a List in it.

Step 1: Creating a PdfWriter object

The PdfWriter class represents the DocWriter for a PDF. This class belongs to the package com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf. The constructor of this class accepts a string, representing the path of the file where the PDF is to be created.

Instantiate the PdfWriter class by passing a string value (representing the path where you need to create a PDF) to its constructor, as shown below.

// Creating a PdfWriter 
String dest = "C:/itextExamples/addingList.pdf"; 
PdfWriter writer = new PdfWriter(dest);

When the object of this type is passed to a PdfDocument (class), every element added to this document will be written to the file specified.

Step 2: Creating a PdfDocument object

The PdfDocument class is the class that represents the PDF Document in iText, this class belongs to the package com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf. To instantiate this class (in writing mode), you need to pass an object of the class PdfWriter to its constructor.

Instantiate the PdfDocument class by passing the above created PdfWriter object to its constructor, as shown below.

// Creating a PdfDocument  
PdfDocument pdfDoc = new PdfDocument(writer);

Once a PdfDocument object is created, you can add various elements like page, font, file attachment, and event handler using the respective methods provided by its class.

Step 3: Creating the Document object

The Document class of the package com.itextpdf.layout is the root element while creating a self-sufficient PDF. One of the constructors of this class accepts an object of the class PdfDocument.

Instantiate the Document class by passing the object of the class PdfDocument created in the previous steps, as shown below.

// Creating a Document   
Document document = new Document(pdfDoc);

Step 4: Creating a List object

The List class represents a series of objects that are vertically outlined. It belongs to the package com.itextpdf.layout.element.

Instantiate the List class as shown below.

// Creating a list  
List list = new List();

Step 5: Adding elements to the list

Add contents to the list object using the add() method of the List class by passing String values, as shown below.

//  Add elements to the list 
list.add("Java"); 
list.add("JavaFX"); 
list.add("Apache Tika"); 
list.add("OpenCV");

Step 6: Adding List to the document

Add the list object created in the previous step using the add() method of the Document class, as shown below.

// Adding list to the document 
document.add(list);

Step 7: Closing the Document

Close the document using the close() method of the Document class as shown below.

// Closing the document 
document.close();

Example

The following Java program demonstrates how to create a PDF document and add a list to it using the iText library. It creates a PDF document with the name addingList.pdf, adds a list to it, and saves it in the path C:/itextExamples/.

Save this code in a file with name AddingList.java.

import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfDocument; 
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfWriter; 

import com.itextpdf.layout.Document; 
import com.itextpdf.layout.element.List; 
import com.itextpdf.layout.element.Paragraph;  

public class AddingList {      
   public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {               
      // Creating a PdfWriter
      String dest = "C:/itextExamples/addngList.pdf";       
      PdfWriter writer = new PdfWriter(dest);              
   
      // Creating a PdfDocument       
      PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument(writer);              
   
      // Creating a Document        
      Document document = new Document(pdf);              
   
      // Creating a Paragraph       
      Paragraph paragraph = new Paragraph("Howcodex provides the following tutorials");
      
      // Creating a list
      List list = new List();  
      
      // Add elements to the list       
      list.add("Java");       
      list.add("JavaFX");      
      list.add("Apache Tika");       
      list.add("OpenCV");       
      list.add("WebGL");       
      list.add("Coffee Script");       
      list.add("Java RMI");       
      list.add("Apache Pig");              
      
      // Adding paragraph to the document       
      document.add(paragraph);                    
     
      // Adding list to the document       
      document.add(list);
      
      // Closing the document       
      document.close();              
      System.out.println("List added");    
   } 
}

Compile and execute the saved Java file from the Command prompt using the following commands −

javac AddingList.java 
java AddingList

Upon execution, the above program creates a PDF document, displaying the following message.

List added

If you verify the specified path, you can find the created PDF document, as shown below.

Adding List
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