We've been using TCPDF for PDF generation of invoices. Lately, in an attempt to update our invoices, we have been bumping into the CSS limitations of TCPDF.

To be fair (and in the interest of "full-disclosure") we are working in SugarCRM, and the invoice code we've been using was originally developed by someone who also used Smarty templates for the invoice generation as well - so perhaps the limitation lies in that.

Whatever the reason, I know that as far as physical layout in PDFs we're limited to tables, but I can't even use padding (<span style="padding: 10px">, for instance) for more "fine-tuned" styling.

We discovered that some of the Zend framework is included in SugarCRM, so for some recent PDF changes we added the Zend_pdf library (out of Zend Framework 1.11.11). Subsequently, we found that it was much easier to do some things (merging pdfs, for instance) more easily with Zend_pdf than with TCPDF.

That got us wondering if Zend_pdf would make styling the invoices easier, allowing us to switch our invoice pdf generation completely over to Zend and ditching TCPDF altogether.

I'd appreciate some input on other's experiences with Zend_pdf stying, particularly if anyone has had a chance to compare Zend_pdf directly with TCPDF.

Thanks