Java Apache POI Excel save as PDF

Question

How can I convert/save excel file to pdf? I'm using java play framework to generate some excel files and now the requirement changes to pdf. I don't want to recode everything.

Is there a way to convert to pdf?

The excel files I'm generating are from a template; I read the excel template file, write changes, and save as new excel file. That way, the template is unchanged. It contains border, image, and other formatting.

Answer 1

You would need the following Java libraries and associated JAR files for the program to work. POI v3.8 iText v5.3.4

Try this Example to convert XLS to PDF

The complete Java code that accepts Excel spreadsheet data as an input and transforms that to a PDF table data is provided below:

 import java.io.FileInputStream;
    import java.io.*;
    import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFWorkbook;
    import org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel.HSSFSheet;
    import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.*;
    import java.util.Iterator;
   import com.itextpdf.text.*;
    import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.*;

    public class excel2pdf {  
            public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{

                    FileInputStream input_document = new FileInputStream(new File("C:\\excel_to_pdf.xls"));
                    // Read workbook into HSSFWorkbook
                    HSSFWorkbook my_xls_workbook = new HSSFWorkbook(input_document); 
                    // Read worksheet into HSSFSheet
                    HSSFSheet my_worksheet = my_xls_workbook.getSheetAt(0); 
                    // To iterate over the rows
                    Iterator<Row> rowIterator = my_worksheet.iterator();
                    //We will create output PDF document objects at this point
                    Document iText_xls_2_pdf = new Document();
                    PdfWriter.getInstance(iText_xls_2_pdf, new FileOutputStream("Excel2PDF_Output.pdf"));
                    iText_xls_2_pdf.open();
                    //we have two columns in the Excel sheet, so we create a PDF table with two columns
                    //Note: There are ways to make this dynamic in nature, if you want to.
                    PdfPTable my_table = new PdfPTable(2);
                    //We will use the object below to dynamically add new data to the table
                    PdfPCell table_cell;
                    //Loop through rows.
                    while(rowIterator.hasNext()) {
                            Row row = rowIterator.next(); 
                            Iterator<Cell> cellIterator = row.cellIterator();
                                    while(cellIterator.hasNext()) {
                                            Cell cell = cellIterator.next(); //Fetch CELL
                                            switch(cell.getCellType()) { //Identify CELL type
                                                    //you need to add more code here based on
                                                    //your requirement / transformations
                                            case Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING:
                                                    //Push the data from Excel to PDF Cell
                                                     table_cell=new PdfPCell(new Phrase(cell.getStringCellValue()));
                                                     //feel free to move the code below to suit to your needs
                                                     my_table.addCell(table_cell);
                                                    break;
                                            }
                                            //next line
                                    }

                    }
                    //Finally add the table to PDF document
                    iText_xls_2_pdf.add(my_table);                       
                    iText_xls_2_pdf.close();                
                    //we created our pdf file..
                    input_document.close(); //close xls
            }
    }

i hope this will help you