How to add text on top of an image inside a cell?

Question

I have problem placing text on top of (not below) an image inside the cell.

My code looks this:

Image img = Image.GetInstance(imagePatch);
img.Alignment = Image.UNDERLYING;
img.ScaleToFit(img.Width, img.Height);
img.ScaleAbsoluteWidth(ptable.TotalWidth);
pcell.AddElement(img);
pcell.addElement(new Paragraph("text", font));
img.SetAbsolutePosition(0, ptable.TotalHeight);`

But the text shows under the image instead of on top of it.

What can I do? Is there any way to set the padding from image borders to text content?

Maybe you have to use `DirectContentUnder`? See [here](http://itextpdf.com/sandbox/images/BackgroundImage). — Sinatr, Nov 28 '14 at 14:26

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

There is more than one way to achieve what you want, depending on the actual requirement.

Approach 1:

The first approach is explained in the WatermarkedImages1 example. In this example, we create a PdfTemplate to which we add an image as well as some text written on top of that image. We can then wrap this PdfTemplate inside an image and add that image together with its watermark to a cell.

This is the method that performs all the magic:

public Image getWatermarkedImage(PdfContentByte cb, Image img, String watermark) throws DocumentException {
    float width = img.getScaledWidth();
    float height = img.getScaledHeight();
    PdfTemplate template = cb.createTemplate(width, height);
    template.addImage(img, width, 0, 0, height, 0, 0);
    ColumnText.showTextAligned(template, Element.ALIGN_CENTER,
            new Phrase(watermark, FONT), width / 2, height / 2, 30);
    return Image.getInstance(template);
}

Approach 2.a

The second approach is explained in the WatermarkedImages2 example. In this case, we add each image to a PdfPCell. This PdfPCell will scale the image so that it fits the width of the page. To add the watermark, we use a cell event:

class WatermarkedCell implements PdfPCellEvent {
    String watermark;

    public WatermarkedCell(String watermark) {
        this.watermark = watermark;
    }

    public void cellLayout(PdfPCell cell, Rectangle position,
        PdfContentByte[] canvases) {
        PdfContentByte canvas = canvases[PdfPTable.TEXTCANVAS];
        ColumnText.showTextAligned(canvas, Element.ALIGN_CENTER,
            new Phrase(watermark, FONT),
            (position.getLeft() + position.getRight()) / 2,
            (position.getBottom() + position.getTop()) / 2, 30);
    }
}

This cell event can be used like this:

PdfPCell cell;
cell = new PdfPCell(Image.getInstance(IMAGE1), true);
cell.setCellEvent(new WatermarkedCell("Bruno"));
table.addCell(cell);
cell = new PdfPCell(Image.getInstance(IMAGE2), true);
cell.setCellEvent(new WatermarkedCell("Dog"));
table.addCell(cell);
cell = new PdfPCell(Image.getInstance(IMAGE3), true);
cell.setCellEvent(new WatermarkedCell("Fox"));
table.addCell(cell);
cell = new PdfPCell(Image.getInstance(IMAGE4), true);
cell.setCellEvent(new WatermarkedCell("Bruno and Ingeborg"));
table.addCell(cell);

You will use this approach if all images have more or less the same size, and if you don't want to worry about fitting the images on the page.

Approach 2.b:

Instead of adding the text to the TEXTCANVAS of a cell event of a cell that contains an image, you can also add the image to the BACKGROUNDCANVAS of a cell event of a cell that contains the text.

Heads up: there is a risk that your question will be closed as a duplicate of How to add text to an image?

How to add text on top of an image inside a cell?

1 Answers1