Alternative to TCPDF for large-volume pdf generation

Question

I generate pdf documents with TCPDF. It's fairly easy to setup and very good for creating pdf files with <10 pages.

I can generate 50 pages long PDF files within the 60 seconds default php timeout and can generate upto 200 pages when the timeout is set to 300 (SET_TIME_LIMIT(300)).

I have also allocated 256 mb memory in the PHP ini.

Is there an alternative to the likes of TCPDF which generate PDF files faster?

Answer 1

If you have shell access via PHP (shell_exec, system or exec) you can split the PDF creation into junks and merge them together with pdftk. With this possibility, you will never reach the timeout limit. The other possibility is the use XML-FO processor like Apache FOP.