The com.itextpdf.text.Image class represent an image of a graphic element such as JPEG, PNG or GIF that can be inserted into a PDF document. There are some methods of the com.itextpdf.text.Image class that can be used to scale the image. These methods include the following: scaleAbsolute(), scaleAbsoluteHeight(), scaleAbsoluteWidth(), scalePercent() and scaleToFit().

These are signatures of those APIs:

• scaleAbsolute(float newWidth, fload newHeight) – Scales the image to an absolute width and an absolute height.
• scaleAbsoluteHeight(float newHeight) – Scales the image to an absolute height.
• scaleAbsoluteWidht(float newWidth) – Scales the image to an absolute width.
• scalePercent(float percent) – Scales the image to a certain percentage.
• scalePercent(float percentX, float percentY) – Scales the image to a certain percentage of width and height.
• scaleToFit(float fitWidth, float fitHeight) – Scales the image to fit a certain width and height.

Here is a code snippet that shows how to use the scaleAbsolute(), scalePercent() and scaleToFit() methods.

package org.kodejava.itextpdf;

import com.itextpdf.text.Document;
import com.itextpdf.text.DocumentException;
import com.itextpdf.text.Image;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfWriter;

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ImageScalingDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Document doc = new Document();
        try {
            PdfWriter.getInstance(doc, new FileOutputStream("ImageScaling.pdf"));
            doc.open();

            // Scale the image to an absolute width and an absolute
            // height
            String filename = "kodejava-itextpdf/src/main/resources/java.png";
            Image image = Image.getInstance(filename);
            image.scaleAbsolute(200f, 200f);
            doc.add(image);

            // The following line to prevent the "Server returned
            // HTTP response code: 403" error.
            System.setProperty("http.agent", "Chrome");

            // Scale the image to a certain percentage
            String url = "https://kodejava.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/kodejava.png";
            image = Image.getInstance(url);
            image.scalePercent(200f);
            doc.add(image);

            // Scales the image so that it fits a certain width and
            // height
            image = Image.getInstance(url);
            image.scaleToFit(100f, 200f);
            doc.add(image);
        } catch (DocumentException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            doc.close();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
    <artifactId>itextpdf</artifactId>
    <version>5.5.13.3</version>
</dependency>

To set the absolute position of an image you can use the setAbsolutePosition() method. This method takes two parameters the X and Y coordinate where the image will be placed. In the pdf document the 0, 0 coordinate is located at the left bottom corner of the document. Let’s see an example below:

package org.kodejava.itextpdf;

import com.itextpdf.text.Document;
import com.itextpdf.text.DocumentException;
import com.itextpdf.text.Image;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfWriter;

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ImageAbsolutePosition {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Document doc = new Document();
        try {
            PdfWriter.getInstance(doc, new FileOutputStream("ImageAbsolutePosition.pdf"));
            doc.open();

            // Sets the absolute position of the image.
            String filename = "kodejava-itextpdf/src/main/resources/java.png";
            Image image = Image.getInstance(filename);
            image.setAbsolutePosition(0f, 0f);
            doc.add(image);
        } catch (DocumentException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            doc.close();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
    <artifactId>itextpdf</artifactId>
    <version>5.5.13.3</version>
</dependency>

The following example demonstrate how to add an image into a PDF document using the iText library. Image is created using the com.itextpdf.text.Image class. To create an instance of image we can use the Image.getInstance() method. Below we create an image from an image file name a URL that point to an image resource.

package org.kodejava.itextpdf;

import com.itextpdf.text.Document;
import com.itextpdf.text.DocumentException;
import com.itextpdf.text.Image;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfWriter;

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class ImageDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Document doc = new Document();
        try {
            PdfWriter.getInstance(doc, new FileOutputStream("ImageDemo.pdf"));
            doc.open();

            // Creating image by file name
            String filename = "kodejava-itextpdf/src/main/resources/java.png";
            Image image = Image.getInstance(filename);
            doc.add(image);

            // The following line to prevent the "Server returned 
            // HTTP response code: 403" error.
            System.setProperty("http.agent", "Chrome");

            // Creating image from a URL
            String url = "https://kodejava.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/kodejava.png";
            image = Image.getInstance(url);
            doc.add(image);
        } catch (DocumentException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            doc.close();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
    <artifactId>itextpdf</artifactId>
    <version>5.5.13.3</version>
</dependency>