Generating PDF Invoices in Laravel with DomPDF

Generating a PDF in Laravel is surprisingly easy once you treat the PDF as just another Blade view.

1. Install DomPDF

composer require barryvdh/laravel-dompdf

2. Validate the input

Never trust the browser to calculate money. Validate each line item and compute the total on the server:

$request->validate([
    'items' => 'required|array',
    'items.*.quantity' => 'required|numeric',
    'items.*.price' => 'required|numeric',
]);

3. Render and download

$pdf = Pdf::loadView('invoice.template', $data);
return $pdf->download('invoice.pdf');

That's it. Keep the template simple (tables and inline styles work best with DomPDF) and you get consistent, printable documents every time.