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

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!

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