How to Send PDF Attachment using Email in Laravel 9

This comprehensive tutorial will teach you how to send emails with PDF attachments in Laravel 9 using the laravel PDF package.

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It is a popular file format created by Adobe; the primary vision of the creator is to provide users with a facile yet reliable way to present and exchange documents.

PDF offers the best way to exchange information between mails; If you are a laravel developer willing to know how to build a controller that helps you send PDF attachments with mail in Laravel, then this guide is for you.

We need a couple of things to send pdf attachments with email; you will need a laravel app, a mail trap for sending and testing emails with a pdf attachment, a controller, routes, and a view file.

Laravel 9 Send PDF Attachment with Email Example

• Step 1: Build Laravel Project
• Step 2: Install PDF Package
• Step 3: Set Up Laravel PDF
• Step 4: Register SMTP in Env
• Step 5: Set Up Send Email Controller
• Step 6: Create Send PDF Attachment View
• Step 7: Build New Routes
• Step 8: Run Application Server

Build Laravel Project

A new laravel application can be created using Composer. If you have installed the Composer, then you can run the given command to build a new project.

composer create-project laravel/laravel --prefer-dist laravel-blog

Install PDF Package

To mail PDF attachments in Laravel is made possible by the laravel-pdf package. This library does the core work for us; you have to install it to take advantage.

composer require niklasravnsborg/laravel-pdf

Set Up Laravel PDF

We have to move into the app.php file that you can see in the config/ directory.

You must register the service provider and facades in providers and aliases, respectively.

'providers' => [
  /* Application Service Providers */
   niklasravnsborg\LaravelPdf\PdfServiceProvider::class
],
'aliases' => Facade::defaultAliases()->merge([
   'PDF' => niklasravnsborg\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf::class
])->toArray(),

We are now going to run the command; our purpose is to publish the library config file to the config folder.

php artisan vendor:publish

Register SMTP in Env

In order to send a mail with pdf, you have to add the credentials inside the .env config file. You can look for this file inside your laravel project.

MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com 
MAIL_PORT=587 
MAIL_USERNAME= USER_NAME_GOES_HERE
MAIL_PASSWORD= PASSWORD_GOES_HERE
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=tls 

You have to allow non-secure apps if you are willing to use Gmail, it will enable the less secure app; make sure to visit here.

Set Up Send Email Controller

You have to run the command to generate a new controller. All the code with logic goes here into this file to build the desired feature.

php artisan make:controller PdfMailController

After invoking the above command, a new file is created; hence, you have to open the app/Http/Controllers/PdfMailController.php file further and add the given code to the file.

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Mail;
class PdfMailController extends Controller
{
    public function index(Request $request){
        {
            $data["email"] = "demo@yahoo.com";
            $data["title"] = "PositronX";
            $data["body"] = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.";
     
            $files = [
                public_path('attachments/demo.jpeg'),
                public_path('attachments/tariff_rates.pdf'),
            ];
      
            Mail::send('mail.demo_mail', $data, function($message)use($data, $files) {
                $message->to($data["email"])
                        ->subject($data["title"]);
     
                foreach ($files as $file){
                    $message->attach($file);
                }            
            });
    
            echo "Mail successfully sent!";
        }       
 }
}

Create Send PDF Attachment View

Further, you have to set up the view file. You need to get into the resources/views folder; here, you must make the home.blade.php and add the given code to the file.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="{{ str_replace('_', '-', app()->getLocale()) }}">
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
        <title>Laravel 9 Email PDF Attachment Example</title>
    </head>
    <body class="antialiased">
       <h2>A demo mail sent from positronx.io</h2>
       <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam non ligula ligula. </p>
    </body>
</html>

Build New Routes

Go ahead and look for the resources/ folder; inside here, you will see web.php file. Make sure to define the route that will help you shoot the mail with a pdf attachment.

<?php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use App\Http\Controllers\PdfMailController;
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Web Routes
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here is where you can register web routes for your application. These
| routes are loaded by the RouteServiceProvider within a group which
| contains the "web" middleware group. Now create something great!
|
*/
Route::get('send-pdf-via-mail', [PdfMailController::class, 'index']);

Run Application Server

We have successfully created the functionality; now you need to run the server using given command. Make sure to test the feature using provided url.

php artisan serve

http://127.0.0.1:8000/send-pdf-via-mail

Conclusion

Laravel PDF library is an mPDF wrapper especially built for Laravel 5 and higher. It quite easily generates PDF documents from HTML.

In this extensive post, we taught you how to use the Laravel PDF library to send PDF attachments via email.