Folio 2.0

Folio 2.0 is a ground-up redesign of the Folio PDF engine. It keeps the zero-dependency, pure-PHP philosophy while adopting an onion/hexagonal architecture, a real layout tree, and a modern template language.

What is new

Onion / hexagonal architecture — the domain (documents, layout, pagination, styling) is isolated from PDF bytes, file systems and network calls through explicit ports and adapters.
Immutable document model — pages, columns, rows, text, headings and tables are value objects that are safe to compose and refactor.
StyleEngine — styles are resolved before layout into a typed ComputedStyle so the output is predictable.
Layout tree — the engine measures and positions text, rows, columns and tables directly, no HTML or browser required.
Pagination — wrapped text and table rows can break across pages.
Pdf1_7Renderer — emits PDF 1.7 object streams with compression and multiple Core14 fonts.
Template language 2.0 — props, @use partials, string interpolation, if/else and foreach loops.
CLI — folio render, folio compile, folio serve and folio cache:clear.
Benchmarks & tests — PHPUnit regression tests, PHPStan, PHP-CS-Fixer and a pure-PHP benchmark harness.

What is in this preview

Folio 2.0.0 is the first stable v2 release. The following features are fully working and tested:

All v2 example PDFs: invoice, certificate, shipping label, resume, receipt, company report and several table demonstrations.
.folio template compilation to PHP.
page, column, row, text, heading, table, header, tr, td, th elements.
prop declarations, @use partial inlining, {var} and {obj.prop} string interpolation.
if / else and foreach ... as control flow.
Percentage widths, flex grow, gap, padding, align and fontWeight.
Multi-level tables with colspan.
Multi-page PHP builder documents with automatic pagination.

What is planned for later 2.x releases

The v2 proposal includes additional features that are not yet wired into the engine:

@theme design-token loading and @style scoped style blocks.
PandaCSS-style recipes, slot recipes and text/layer styles.
Components with typed props and named slots.
Images, SVG and embedded TrueType/OpenType fonts.
pageHeader() / pageFooter() page chrome helpers.
PDF/A output and digital signatures.
VS Code extension language server features beyond formatting.

Quick start

Install the library:

bash

composer require mohammadraufzahed/folio

Create invoice.folio:

folio

prop customer = ""
prop total = ""

page(background="#ffffff") {
    column(padding=48, gap=24) {
        heading(fontSize=24) "Invoice"
        text "Customer: {customer}"
        text "Total: {total}"
    }
}

Render it from PHP:

php

<?php
use Folio\Pdf\Template\TemplateEngine;

$engine = new TemplateEngine();
$pdf = $engine
    ->enableFolio2Syntax(__DIR__)
    ->renderFile('invoice.folio', [
        'customer' => 'Acme Inc.',
        'total' => '$1,250.00',
    ]);

file_put_contents('invoice.pdf', $pdf);

Migration from v1

Folio 2.0 is a major version and is not backward compatible with v1. The old PdfFileWriter and Document::generate() path has been removed. See the migration guide for a full mapping.

Folio 2.0 ​

What is new ​

What is in this preview ​

What is planned for later 2.x releases ​

Quick start ​

Migration from v1 ​

Learn more ​