Center/Align text in table cell with OpenPDF in Java

Question

I am using OpenPDF 1.3.20 with Java and want to change the alignment of a text/paragraph in a table cell. No matter what I tried so far changed the positioning of text anywhere.

I only learned that a text added as table.addCell("sometext") would align it as center. As I want to add more complex content this isn't sufficient and I need good control about the positioning.

This is the test class I used so far. How can I change the alignment of a specific cell?

import com.lowagie.text.*;
import com.lowagie.text.Font;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfPCell;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfPTable;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfWriter;

import java.awt.*;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class test {
    public static void main(String[] args){
        Document document = new Document();
        try {
            // step 2:
            // we create a writer that listens to the document
            // and directs a PDF-stream to a file
            PdfWriter.getInstance(document,
                    new FileOutputStream("HelloWorld.pdf"));

            // step 3: we open the document
            document.open();
            // step 4: we add a table to the document

            Font whiteFont = new
                    Font(Font.HELVETICA, 18, Font.NORMAL, new Color(255, 255, 255));
            PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(2);
            table.setWidthPercentage(100);
            Color blue = new Color(0, 0, 255);

            PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell();
            cell.setBorderWidth(0);
            cell.setBackgroundColor(blue);
            // here i try to change the alignment of text in the cell
            cell.setVerticalAlignment(Element.ALIGN_MIDDLE);
            cell.setHorizontalAlignment(Element.ALIGN_CENTER);
            Paragraph p = new Paragraph("test1", whiteFont);
            p.setAlignment(Element.ALIGN_MIDDLE);
            cell.addElement(p);
            table.addCell(cell);

            cell = new PdfPCell();
            cell.setBorderWidth(0);
            cell.setBackgroundColor(blue);
            cell.addElement(new Paragraph("test2", whiteFont));
            table.addCell(cell);

            document.add(table);
            document.close();

        } catch (DocumentException de) {
            System.err.println(de.getMessage());
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            System.err.println(ioe.getMessage());
        }

        // step 5: we close the document
        document.close();
    }
}

Answer 1

Font whiteFont = new Font(Font.HELVETICA, 18, Font.NORMAL, new Color(255, 255, 255));



Phrase phrase = new Phrase("Hello World!", whiteFont);
PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell(phrase);
cell.setHorizontalAlignment(Element.ALIGN_CENTER);
cell.setVerticalAlignment(Element.ALIGN_CENTER);