php - adding font to mPDF

Question

I'm getting the following error when I try and generate a PDF using the mPDF class:

TTF file "C:/wamp/www/inc/mpdf/ttfonts/verdana.ttf": invalid checksum 20f65173c11 table: DSIG (expected 65173c11)

I've uploaded the font files to my ttfonts directory and defined the font in config_fonts.php like this:

"verdana" => array(
    'R' => "verdana.ttf",
    'B' => "verdanab.ttf",
    'I' => "verdanai.ttf",
    'BI' => "verdanaz.ttf",
    ),

I only see the error when I turn on font error reporting in the config settings. When I turn error reporting off, the PDF is generated, but the font being used is not Verdana.

Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

Based on @hrvoje-golcic answer, here's an improved and less dirty way to add fonts to mPDF without editing config_fonts.php. I'm using Laravel, I installed mPDF using composer.

1. As suggested by the author, define a constant named _MPDF_TTFONTPATH before initializing mPDF with the value as the path to your ttfonts folder (this constant exists since at least 5.3).
2. Copy the vendor/mpdf/mpdf/ttfonts folder to a location that you control (outside of the vendor folder).
3. Add your custom fonts to that folder along with the others.
4. Add your configuration to the fontdata property on the mPDF instance.

Heads up: The ttfonts folder has around 90MB so there's still might be a better way, but you have to copy all the fonts since the original config adds them. See composer script alternative at the bottom of this answer.

IMPORTANT: CSS font-family will be transformed to lowercase + nospaces so "Source Sans Pro" will become sourcesanspro.

Here's an example:

if (!defined('_MPDF_TTFONTPATH')) {
    // an absolute path is preferred, trailing slash required:
    define('_MPDF_TTFONTPATH', realpath('fonts/'));
    // example using Laravel's resource_path function:
    // define('_MPDF_TTFONTPATH', resource_path('fonts/'));
}

function add_custom_fonts_to_mpdf($mpdf, $fonts_list) {

    $fontdata = [
        'sourcesanspro' => [
            'R' => 'SourceSansPro-Regular.ttf',
            'B' => 'SourceSansPro-Bold.ttf',
        ],
    ];

    foreach ($fontdata as $f => $fs) {
        // add to fontdata array
        $mpdf->fontdata[$f] = $fs;

        // add to available fonts array
        foreach (['R', 'B', 'I', 'BI'] as $style) {
            if (isset($fs[$style]) && $fs[$style]) {
                // warning: no suffix for regular style! hours wasted: 2
                $mpdf->available_unifonts[] = $f . trim($style, 'R');
            }
        }

    }

    $mpdf->default_available_fonts = $mpdf->available_unifonts;
}

$mpdf = new mPDF('UTF-8', 'A4');
add_custom_fonts_to_mpdf($mpdf);
$mpdf->WriteHTML($html);

Composer post-install script

Instead of copying all the fonts and adding them to git, a handy workaround using a composer post-install script can do that for you.

First of all, make sure the folder where you wish to copy the fonts exists, and create a .gitignore in it, with the following contents:

*
!.gitignore
!SourceSansPro-Regular.ttf
!SourceSansPro-Bold.ttf

This will ignore everything except the .gitignore file and the fonts you wish to add.

Next, add the following scripts to your composer.json file:

"scripts": {
    "post-install-cmd": [
        "cp -f vendor/mpdf/mpdf/ttfonts/* resources/fonts/"
    ],
    "post-update-cmd": [
        "cp -f vendor/mpdf/mpdf/ttfonts/* resources/fonts/"
    ]
}

Notes

This was tested to work with 6.1.
In 7.x, the author implemented an elegant way to add external fonts.