On PHPBuilder.com today there's a new tutorial about creating editing PDFs with the help of the FPDF library.

Because the Web has become the primary mechanism for distributing PDF documents, it's common to encounter questions on various web development forums pertinent to the dynamic creation of PDF documents using languages such as PHP. [...] Thankfully, such a demand for PDF manipulation capabilities exists within the PHP community that numerous alternative open source solutions have long been available, including notably FPDF.

They help you get the library installed and show you how to create a basic PDF with some simple text inside. They build on this and show how to add multiple text sections, images and watermarks.

Eirik Hoem recently pointed out two libraries that can be used in PHP to generate PDF files dynamically - FPDF and FPDI.

Ever wanted to generated PDF documents on the fly with PHP? Perhaps populate a standard contract with a customers name and address? FPDF and FPDI are two neat libraries which greatly helps when working with PDF files.

FPDF handles most of the work of creating and working with the PDF files while FPDI works together with it to pull in existing PDF files so FPDF can modify them. He links to some sample code you can try out once you've installed the two libraries.

The Builder.com.au website has a new tutorial posted today that looks at the dynamic creation of a web standard (PDF files) inside of a PHP script.

An alternative way of generating PDF files with PHP is using FPDF, a free PHP class containing a number of functions for creating and manipulating PDFs. The key word here is free. You are free to download and use this class or customise it to fit your needs. In addition to being free, it's also simpler to use than PDFlib. The PDFlib needs to be installed as an extension in your PHP package, whereas FPDF can just be included in your PHP script and it's ready to use

They show how to use the FPDF library to make some simple files - setting the title, author, adding images and text, etc. There's even a little bit there at the end about adding new pages to make more complex documents simple.