When discussing file formats, something must be said about the PDF format. PDF (Portable Document Format) is the 600-Pound gorilla of file documents. Originally a proprietary document format created by Adobe, PDFs have gained popularity as solving a specific problem, that is to create a document and be assured that it will look exactly the same on any system that the document is viewed on.
Unfortunately, there is a cost to the portability of PDF documents. It is an extremely complex format and is notoriously difficult to decipher, even for those who read the 1,000+ pages of the specification.
Thankfully, as PEAR users, we don't have to worry about reading the lengthy technical specification and can simply use the File_PDF library to handle our PDF creation needs. With a simple API we are able to do the majority of the tasks that present themselves, including displaying text, drawing lines and other objects, displaying images, writing to tables, etc.
The following is...