One of the coolest features about PHP is all of the libraries and classes that you can interface with, and add to the abilities already inherent in the language. One such application allows you to create PDF documents on the fly with a (somewhat) simple PHP script, and this new article from SitePoint can show you how.

In Generate PDFs with PHP, the piece starts off assuming that you have the pdflib software installed and working with PHP. They dive right into the code, creating a simple PDF file containing a string. They advance through some other features (like including images, drawing in the document, creating grids, you name it...) and finish it all up with the creation of a simple, 2D pie graph based on data already in the code.

Of course, there's a lot more to the featureset than is presented here, but this is a good place to start. PDFs can be quite useful, not only to people providing print information, but even for business applications, creating real-time stats you can print to show those "higher up".