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How to create a table with complex borders?

I need to create a table with rounded and rectangular borders.

The table with round and rectangular borders should look like this:

Table with complex borders

Can anyone explain how I would start creating such a table?

Posted on StackOverflow on Jul 9, 2015 by Md. Asaduzzaman

Please take a look at the NestedTableRoundedBorder example. It creates a PDF that looks like this: nested_table_rounded_border.pdf

Table with complex borders

Table with complex borders

This construction consists of nested tables. The outer table only has one column, but we use it to create the rounded corners:

private class RoundedBorderCellRenderer extends CellRenderer {
    public RoundedBorderCellRenderer(Cell modelElement) {
        super(modelElement);
    }

    @Override
    public void draw(DrawContext drawContext) {
        drawContext.getCanvas().roundRectangle(getOccupiedAreaBBox().getX() + 1.5f, getOccupiedAreaBBox().getY() + 1.5f,
                getOccupiedAreaBBox().getWidth() - 3, getOccupiedAreaBBox().getHeight() - 3, 4);
        drawContext.getCanvas().stroke();
        super.draw(drawContext);
    }
}

This renderer is used like this:

cell = new Cell().add(innertable);
cell.setNextRenderer(new RoundedBorderCellRenderer(cell));
cell.setBorder(Border.NO_BORDER);
cell.setPadding(8);
outertable.addCell(cell);

The inner tables are used to create cells with or without borders, for instance like this:

// inner table 1
Table innertable = new Table(new float[]{8, 12, 1, 4, 12});
innertable.setWidthPercent(100);
// first row
// column 1
cell = new Cell().add("Record Ref:");
cell.setBorder(Border.NO_BORDER);
innertable.addCell(cell);
// column 2
cell = new Cell().add("GN Staff");
cell.setPaddingLeft(2);
innertable.addCell(cell);
// column 3
cell = new Cell();
cell.setBorder(Border.NO_BORDER);
innertable.addCell(cell);
// column 4
cell = new Cell().add("Date: ");
cell.setBorder(Border.NO_BORDER);
innertable.addCell(cell);
// column 5
cell = new Cell().add("30/4/2015");
cell.setPaddingLeft(2);
innertable.addCell(cell);
// spacing
cell = new Cell(1, 5);
cell.setHeight(3);
cell.setBorder(Border.NO_BORDER);
innertable.addCell(cell);

If some of the dimensions are quite like you want, it's sufficient to change parameters such as the widths array, the padding, the fixed height, etc.

Click How to create a table with complex borders? if you want to see how to answer this question in iText 5.

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