php-pdftk

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A PDF conversion and form utility based on pdftk

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A PDF conversion and form utility based on pdftk

php-pdftk

A PDF conversion and form utility based on pdftk.

Features

php-pdftk brings the full power of pdftk to PHP - and more.

Fill forms, either from a XFDF/FDF file or from a data array (UTF-8 safe for unflattened forms, requires pdftk 2.x !)
Create XFDF or FDF files from PHP arrays (UTF-8 safe!)
Create FDF files from filled PDF forms
Combine pages from several PDF files into a new PDF file
Split a PDF into one file per page
Add background or overlay PDFs
Read out meta data about PDF and form fields
Set passwords and permissions
Remove passwords

Requirements

The pdftk command must be installed and working on your system
This library is written for pdftk 2.x versions. You should be able to use it with pdftk 1.x but not all methods will work there. For details consult the man page of pdftk on your system.
There is a known issue on Ubuntu if you installed the pdftk package from snap. This version has no permission to write to the /tmp directory. You can either set another temporay directory as described below or use another package. For Ubuntu 18.10 there's also a pdftk-java package available via apt which should work fine. You can also install this package on Ubuntu 18.04 if you download it manually. Also check this answer on askubuntu.

Note: The pdftk version from the alternative PPA ppa:malteworld/ppa is no longer available. The author instead now points to his answer on askubuntu linked above.

Installation

You should use composer to install this library.

composer require mikehaertl/php-pdftk

Examples

Create instance for PDF files

There are several ways to tell the Pdf instance which file(s) it should use. Some files may also require a password or need an alias to be used as a handle in some operations (e.g. cat or shuffle).

Note: In version 2.x of pdftk a handle can be one or more upper case letters.

…

Operations

Please consult the pdftk man page for each operation to find out how each operation works in detail and which options are available.

For all operations you can either save the PDF locally through saveAs($name) or send it to the browser with send(). If you pass a filename to send($name) the client browser will open a download dialogue whereas without a filename it will usually display the PDF inline.

IMPORTANT: You can always only perform one of the following operations on a single PDF instance. Below you can find a workaround if you need multiple operations.

Fill Form

Fill a PDF form with data from a PHP array or an XFDF/FDF file.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

// Fill form with data array
$pdf = new Pdf('/full/path/to/form.pdf');
$result = $pdf->fillForm([
        'name'=>'ÄÜÖ äüö мирано čárka',
        'nested.name' => 'valX',
    ])
    ->needAppearances()
    ->saveAs('filled.pdf');

// Always check for errors
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

// Fill form from FDF
$pdf = new Pdf('form.pdf');
$result = $pdf->fillForm('data.xfdf')
    ->saveAs('filled.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Note: When filling in UTF-8 data, you should always add the needAppearances() option. This will make sure, that the PDF reader takes care of using the right fonts for rendering, something that pdftk can't do for you. Also note that flatten() doesn't really work well if you have special characters in your data.

If you use pdftk-java >= 3.3.0 and the embedded font does not support UTF-8 characters you can also replace it with a local font:

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

// Fill form with data array
$pdf = new Pdf('/full/path/to/form.pdf');
$result = $pdf->fillForm($data)
    ->replacementFont('/usr/share/fonts/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf')
    ->saveAs('filled.pdf');

Create a XFDF/FDF file from a PHP array

This is a bonus feature that is not available from pdftk.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\XfdfFile;
use mikehaertl\pdftk\FdfFile;

$xfdf = new XfdfFile(['name' => 'Jürgen мирано']);
$xfdf->saveAs('/path/to/data.xfdf');

$fdf = new FdfFile(['name' => 'Jürgen мирано']);
$fdf->saveAs('/path/to/data.fdf');

Cat

Assemble a PDF from pages from one or more PDF files.

…

Shuffle

Like cat() but create "streams" and fill the new PDF with one page from each stream at a time.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

$pdf = new Pdf([
    'A' => '/path/file1.pdf',     // A is alias for file1.pdf
    'B' => '/path/file2.pdf',     // B is alias for file2.pdf
]);

// new.pdf will have pages A1, B3, A2, B4, A3, B5, ...
$result = $pdf->shuffle(1, 5, 'A')    // pages 1-5 from A
    ->shuffle(3, 8, 'B')    // pages 3-8 from B
    ->saveAs('/path/new.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Burst

Split a PDF file into one file per page.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->burst('/path/page_%d.pdf');     // Supply a printf() pattern
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Add background PDF

Add another PDF file as background.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

// Set background from another PDF (first page repeated)
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->background('/path/back.pdf')
    ->saveAs('/path/watermarked.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

// Set background from another PDF (one page each)
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->multiBackground('/path/back_pages.pdf')
    ->saveAs('/path/watermarked.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Add overlay PDF

Add another PDF file as overlay.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

// Stamp with another PDF (first page repeated)
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->stamp('/path/overlay.pdf')
    ->saveAs('/path/stamped.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

// Stamp with another PDF (one page each)
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->multiStamp('/path/overlay_pages.pdf')
    ->saveAs('/path/stamped.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Attach Files

Add file attachments to the document or to a specific page.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

$files = [
    '/path/to/file1',
    '/path/to/file2',
]

// Add files at the document level
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->attachFiles($files)
    ->saveAs('/path/withfiles.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

// Add files to a specific page
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$page = 7;
$result = $pdf->attachFiles($files, $page)
    ->saveAs('/path/withfiles.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Unpack Files

Copy file attachments from a PDF to the given directory.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->unpackFiles('/path/to/dir');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Generate FDF

Create a FDF file from a given filled PDF form.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

// Create FDF from PDF
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/form.pdf');
$result = $pdf->generateFdfFile('/path/data.fdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Get PDF data

Read out metadata or form field information from a PDF file.

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

// Get data
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$data = $pdf->getData();
if ($data === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

// Get form data fields
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$data = $pdf->getDataFields();
if ($data === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

// Get data as string
echo $data;
$txt = (string) $data;
$txt = $data->__toString();

// Get data as array
$arr = (array) $data;
$arr = $data->__toArray();
$field1 = $data[0]['Field1'];

How to perform more than one operation on a PDF

As stated above, you can only perform one of the preceeding operations on a single PDF instance. If you need more than one operation you can feed one Pdf instance into another:

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

// Extract pages 1-5 and 7,4,9 into a new file
$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$pdf->cat(1, 5)
    ->cat([7, 4, 9]);

// We now use the above PDF as source file for a new PDF
$pdf2 = new Pdf($pdf);
$result = $pdf2->fillForm(['name' => 'ÄÜÖ äüö мирано čárka'])
    ->needAppearances()
    ->saveAs('/path/filled.pdf');
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}

Options

You can combine the above operations with one or more of the following options.

…

Shell Command

The class uses php-shellcommand to execute pdftk. You can pass $options for its Command class as second argument to the constructor:

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf', [
    'command' => '/some/other/path/to/pdftk',
    // or on most Windows systems:
    // 'command' => 'C:\Program Files (x86)\PDFtk\bin\pdftk.exe',
    'useExec' => true,  // May help on Windows systems if execution fails
]);

Solve issues with UTF-8 characters in filenames or infofile content

If you have files with UTF-8 encoded characters in their filename or if you pass an infofile with such characters to updateInfo() you should supply the correct locale when excuting pdftk. You can therefore add these options:

php

$pdf = new Pdf($file, [
    'locale' => 'en_US.utf8',
    'procEnv' => [
        'LANG' => 'en_US.utf-8',
    ],
]);

Note: You need to ensure that the locale you set here is available on your system. On Linux you can check with locale -a which locales are installed. This article explains the concept in more detail.

Temporary File

Internally a temporary file is created via php-tmpfile. You can also access that file directly, e.g. if you neither want to send or save the file but only need the binary PDF content:

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$result = $pdf->fillForm(['name' => 'My Name'])
    ->execute();
if ($result === false) {
    $error = $pdf->getError();
}
$content = file_get_contents( (string) $pdf->getTmpFile() );

If you have permission issues you may have to set a directory where your pdftk command can write to:

php

use mikehaertl\pdftk\Pdf;

$pdf = new Pdf('/path/my.pdf');
$pdf->tempDir = '/home/john/temp';

API

Please consult the source files for a full documentation of each method.

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PublishedAug 1, 2026

UpdatedSep 17, 2026

Category编程语言

PricingOpen source

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php-pdftk

About

php-pdftk

Features

Requirements

Installation

Examples

Create instance for PDF files

Operations

Fill Form

Create a XFDF/FDF file from a PHP array

Cat

Shuffle

Burst

Add background PDF

Add overlay PDF

Attach Files

Unpack Files

Generate FDF

Get PDF data

How to perform more than one operation on a PDF

Options

Shell Command

Solve issues with UTF-8 characters in filenames or infofile content

Temporary File

API

Issues· 0 open

> Tags

> Discussion

> Details

> Related tools