Drawing an Object in a PDF with Canvas using Java

Last Updated : 11 Dec, 2020

To create an object in a PDF with Canvas using Java can be done by using a library called iText. iText is a Java library originally created by Bruno Lowagie which allows creating PDF, read PDF, and manipulate them.

Libraries required :

iText
slf4j (Logging Library)

Example : Drawing a circle in a PDF

Approach:

Get the current working directory of the running java program to create the PDF file in the same location
Create a PdfWriter object (from itextpdf library) which writes the PDF file to the given path
Create an empty PdfDocument object and add a page to it using PdfPage object
Create the canvas using the PdfCanvas object in the Pdf Page
Create the object on the Canvas and fill the object with color

Below is the implementation of the above approach:

Java

// Drawing an object in a PDF with Canvas using Java 
import com.itextpdf.kernel.colors.*; 
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfDocument; 
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfPage; 
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.PdfWriter; 
import com.itextpdf.kernel.pdf.canvas.PdfCanvas; 
import com.itextpdf.layout.Document; 
  
// importing generic packages 
import java.io.*; 
import java.util.*; 
  
public class DrawPDF { 
    public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception 
    { 
  
        // getting path of current working directory 
        // to create the pdf file in the same directory of 
        // the running java program 
        String path = System.getProperty("user.dir"); 
        path += "/DrawPDF.pdf"; 
        // Creating a PdfWriter object using the path 
        PdfWriter writer = new PdfWriter(path); 
  
        // Creating a PdfDocument object 
        PdfDocument pdfDoc = new PdfDocument(writer); 
  
        // Creating a Document object 
        Document doc = new Document(pdfDoc); 
  
        // Creating a new page and adding to the pdfDoc 
        // object 
        PdfPage pdfPage = pdfDoc.addNewPage(); 
  
        // Creating a PdfCanvas object to draw the circle 
        // object 
        PdfCanvas canvas = new PdfCanvas(pdfPage); 
  
        // Setting Green color to the circle, boolean fill 
        // set to true. ColorsConstants from itext library 
        // hosts an array of different colors 
        canvas.setColor(ColorConstants.GREEN, true); 
  
        // creating a circle with parameters : X-coordinate, 
        // Y-coordinate , Circle Diameter 
        canvas.circle(300, 400, 200); 
  
        // Filling the circle 
        canvas.fill(); 
  
        // Closing the document 
        doc.close(); 
        System.out.println( 
            "Object drawn & PDf created successfully!"); 
    } 
}