Working with Fonts

Standard 14 Fonts

The PDF specification states that a standard set of 14 fonts will always be available when consuming PDF documents. In PDFBox these are defined as constants in the PDType1Font class.

Standard Font	Description
PDType1Font.TIMES_ROMAN	Times regular
PDType1Font.TIMES_BOLD	Times bold
PDType1Font.TIMES_ITALIC	Times italic
PDType1Font.TIMES_BOLD_ITALIC	Times bold italic
PDType1Font.HELVETICA	Helvetica regular
PDType1Font.HELVETICA_BOLD	Helvetica bold
PDType1Font.HELVETICA_OBLIQUE	Helvetica italic
PDType1Font.HELVETICA_BOLD_OBLIQUE	Helvetica bold italic
PDType1Font.COURIER	Courier
PDType1Font.COURIER_BOLD	Courier bold
PDType1Font.COURIER_OBLIQUE	Courier italic
PDType1Font.COURIER_BOLD_OBLIQUE	Courier bold italic
PDType1Font.SYMBOL	Symbol Set
PDType1Font.ZAPF_DINGBATS	Dingbat Typeface

Hello World Using a PDF Base Font

This small sample shows how to create a new document and print the text "Hello World" using one of the PDF base fonts.

// Create a document and add a page to it
PDDocument document = new PDDocument();
PDPage page = new PDPage();
document.addPage( page );

// Create a new font object selecting one of the PDF base fonts
PDFont font = PDType1Font.HELVETICA_BOLD;

// Start a new content stream which will "hold" the to be created content
PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(document, page);

// Define a text content stream using the selected font, moving the cursor and drawing the text "Hello World"
contentStream.beginText();
contentStream.setFont( font, 12 );
contentStream.moveTextPositionByAmount( 100, 700 );
contentStream.drawString( "Hello World" );
contentStream.endText();

// Make sure that the content stream is closed:
contentStream.close();

// Save the results and ensure that the document is properly closed:
document.save( "Hello World.pdf");
document.close();

Hello World Using a TrueType Font

This small sample shows how to create a new document and print the text "Hello World" using a TrueType font.

// Create a document and add a page to it
PDDocument document = new PDDocument();
PDPage page = new PDPage();
document.addPage( page );

// Create a new font object by loading a TrueType font into the document
PDFont font = PDTrueTypeFont.loadTTF(document, "Arial.ttf");

// Start a new content stream which will "hold" the to be created content
PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(document, page);

// Define a text content stream using the selected font, moving the cursor and drawing the text "Hello World"
contentStream.beginText();
contentStream.setFont( font, 12 );
contentStream.moveTextPositionByAmount( 100, 700 );
contentStream.drawString( "Hello World" );
contentStream.endText();

// Make sure that the content stream is closed:
contentStream.close();

// Save the results and ensure that the document is properly closed:
document.save( "Hello World.pdf");
document.close();

While it is recommended to embed all fonts for greatest portability not all PDF producer applications will do this. When displaying a PDF it is necessary to find an external font to use. PDFBox will look for a mapping file to use when substituting fonts.

PDFBox will load Resources/PDFBox_External_Fonts.properties off of the classpath to map font names to TTF font files. The UNKNOWN_FONT property in that file will tell PDFBox which font to use when no mapping exists.

Hello World Using a PostScript Type1 Font

This small sample shows how to create a new document and print the text "Hello World" using a PostScript Type1 font.

// Create a document and add a page to it
PDDocument document = new PDDocument();
PDPage page = new PDPage();
document.addPage( page );

// Create a new font object by loading a PostScript Type 1 font into the document
PDFont font = new PDType1AfmPfbFont(doc,"cfm.afm");

// Start a new content stream which will "hold" the to be created content
PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(document, page);

// Define a text content stream using the selected font, moving the cursor and drawing the text "Hello World"
contentStream.beginText();
contentStream.setFont( font, 12 );
contentStream.moveTextPositionByAmount( 100, 700 );
contentStream.drawString( "Hello World" );
contentStream.endText();

// Make sure that the content stream is closed:
contentStream.close();

// Save the results and ensure that the document is properly closed:
document.save( "Hello World.pdf");
document.close();