Laravel PDF Generator ✅

A lightweight Laravel project that demonstrates PDF generation (using packages like barryvdh/laravel-dompdf) and includes a simple web UI. This README explains how to get the project running locally and in Docker.

---

🚀 Quick Start

1. Clone the repository

git clone <repo-url> laravel-pdf-generator
cd laravel-pdf-generator

2. Install PHP dependencies

composer install

3. Copy the environment file and set values

cp .env.example .env
# On Windows (PowerShell): Copy-Item .env.example .env

4. Serve the application

php artisan serve 

Open your browser at: http://127.0.0.1:8000

---

🧪 Tests

Run the test suite with:

php artisan test

---

🐳 Docker (optional)

This repository contains a Dockerfile. A simple way to build and run the image locally:

docker build -t laravel-pdf-generator .
docker run -it --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e APP_ENV=local -e APP_KEY="base64:..." \
  laravel-pdf-generator

(Adjust environment variables and entrypoint as required; for production deployments prefer using a multi-stage build or Docker Compose.)

---

⚠️ Troubleshooting & Tips

• If composer install fails with memory errors, run:

COMPOSER_MEMORY_LIMIT=-1 composer install

• Ensure PHP extensions required by Laravel are installed (openssl, pdo, mbstring, tokenizer, xml, ctype, json, bcmath).

• On Windows, if symlinks fail for php artisan storage:link, create the storage public folder manually or run your terminal as Administrator.

• If assets are not updating, try:

npm run dev
php artisan view:clear
php artisan route:clear
php artisan config:clear

---

📁 Project notes

• PDF generation uses barryvdh/laravel-dompdf (already included in composer.json). Check resources/views/pdf/ for example templates.

• Routes and controllers are located in app/Http/Controllers and views are in resources/views.

---

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome — please open an issue or a pull request.

---

📜 License

The Laravel framework is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.