How to create rectangle vertically and add text to it in PDF using itext 2.1.7

Question

My requirement is straight, I want to create a rectangle positioned vertically and add text to it starting from bottom to going upward direction. (basically 90 degree box) in all pages of PDF

I tried achieving it using below code snap, but I want it to be enclosed within a specific dimension of box, which I cant control using this ColumnText approach

for example:

ColumnText.showTextAligned(canvas, PdfContentByte.ALIGN_LEFT, note,
                        .03F * pageWidth, .68F * pageHeight, 90);

Answer 1

For a task like yours the static convenience methods of ColumnText don't suffice, you need to actually create and parameterize a full ColumnText instance.

For example like this:

float width = Utilities.millimetersToPoints(10);
float height = Utilities.millimetersToPoints(100);
float x = Utilities.millimetersToPoints(15);
float y = Utilities.millimetersToPoints(150);
float fontHeight = Utilities.millimetersToPoints(4);
String content = "Some text to fill the box. There's nothing really to say, just a box to fill. So let's fill the box.";

PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(YOUR_SOURCE_FILE);
PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, new FileOutputStream(new File(RESULT_FOLDER, "RotatedBoxForAbbas.pdf")));
Rectangle cropBox = reader.getCropBox(1);
PdfContentByte canvas = stamper.getOverContent(1);
canvas.concatCTM(0, 1, -1, 0, cropBox.getLeft() + x + width, cropBox.getBottom() + y);
canvas.rectangle(0, 0, height, width);
canvas.stroke();
ColumnText columnText = new ColumnText(canvas);
columnText.addText(new Chunk(content, new Font(FontFamily.HELVETICA, fontHeight)));
columnText.setLeading(fontHeight);
columnText.setSimpleColumn(2, 0, height - 4, width);
columnText.go();
stamper.close();

(AddTextBox test testRotatedBoxForAbbas)

^{(While this test has been created for iText 5, it should work identically with iText 2.1.7 and OpenPdf after adapting the import packages.)}

You didn't mention dimensions in this question but in your previous, removed one you mentioned dimensions given in mm, so I also used millimeters here.

The result on an empty source page: