This printing plugin provides a simple yet compelling example of how platform independent web map printing might be implemented. Our implementation bypasses the browsers native printing functionality by rendering server side to a PDF document, which is then automatically downloaded to the browser. The PDF document can either be saved to the file system or opened in a new browser window from which native PDF printing is possible. As different browsers are allowed to - and will - render identical HTML pages in a slightly different manner, an absolute format like PDF is a necessity for creating reproducible prints.
Our implementation makes extensive use of the excellent iText library, which allows direct drawing operations on a graphics context. This has the advantage of preserving the vectorial nature of the features in a layer, allowing crisp vector rendering at any zoom level.
Using this plug-in in Maven
In order to use this plug-in in your Maven-project, add the following dependency to the pom.xml:
