Laravel 12 Generate PDF – A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

Generating PDF files is a common requirement in many web applications—whether you're building invoices, reports, tickets, or receipts. In this blog, we’ll walk through how to generate PDF files in Laravel 12 using a popular package called barryvdh/laravel-dompdf.

✅ Goal: By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to generate a beautiful PDF from an HTML view in your Laravel 12 project.

📦 Step 1: Install Laravel 12

If you haven’t created a Laravel 12 project yet, run:

composer create-project laravel/laravel laravel-pdf-demo

Go into your project directory:

cd laravel-pdf-demo

📥 Step 2: Install the barryvdh/laravel-dompdf Package

Run the following command to install the package:

composer require barryvdh/laravel-dompdf

This package is a wrapper around Dompdf, which converts HTML to PDF using the browser rendering engine.

🧩 Step 3: (Optional) Publish the Configuration File

You can publish the config file if you want to customize settings:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Barryvdh\DomPDF\ServiceProvider"

It will create a file at config/dompdf.php.

🛠️ Step 4: Create a Route to Generate PDF

Open your routes/web.php and add a route to test PDF generation:

use App\Http\Controllers\PDFController;

Route::get('/generate-pdf', [PDFController::class, 'generatePDF']);

🧑‍💻 Step 5: Create a PDF Controller

Run the Artisan command:

php artisan make:controller PDFController

Then, open the controller file (app/Http/Controllers/PDFController.php) and add:

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Barryvdh\DomPDF\Facade\Pdf;

class PDFController extends Controller
{
    public function generatePDF()
    {
        $data = [
            'title' => 'Welcome to Laravel PDF',
            'date' => date('m/d/Y')
        ];

        $pdf = Pdf::loadView('pdf.invoice', $data);
        return $pdf->download('invoice.pdf');
    }
}

📄 Step 6: Create a Blade View for the PDF

Now let’s create the Blade file that will be converted to PDF.

Create the view file:

resources/views/pdf/invoice.blade.php

Paste the following HTML:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Invoice PDF</title>
    <style>
        body { font-family: sans-serif; }
        h1 { color: #3490dc; }
        .content { margin-top: 20px; }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>{{ $title }}</h1>
    <p class="content">This PDF was generated using Laravel 12 and DomPDF.</p>
    <p>Date: {{ $date }}</p>
</body>
</html>

🎨 You can use basic HTML and inline styles. DomPDF supports most HTML tags and simple CSS (but not all modern CSS features).

🌐 Step 7: Test It Out!

Run your Laravel server:

php artisan serve

Now visit http://localhost:8000/generate-pdf in your browser. The browser should automatically download a file named invoice.pdf.

🎯 Bonus: Stream the PDF Instead of Downloading

If you want to open the PDF in the browser instead of downloading it, change the return line in the controller:

return $pdf->stream('invoice.pdf');

🛡️ Tips & Troubleshooting

• Fonts not loading? DomPDF has limited font support. Use basic fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or load custom fonts with care.
• CSS issues? Keep styling minimal or use inline styles. Advanced CSS like Flexbox or Grid might not render properly.
• Images not showing? Use full URL paths or set 'isRemoteEnabled' => true in config/dompdf.php.

📚 Summary

In this post, you learned how to:

✅ Install and configure the barryvdh/laravel-dompdf package
✅ Create a controller and Blade view for PDF generation
✅ Download or stream PDF files in Laravel 12

With this setup, you can easily generate PDFs for invoices, reports, tickets, or anything else your app needs!