Hi Peter,
I have seen the post before, but as Ian wrote, it is not so easy, e.g. for Phoca PDF, some specific functions are added to TCPDF (small hacks to work TCPDF in Joomla! framework were made). Installing only updated TCPDF is cca 10% of the whole work it should be done to have working PDF framework
For now I have only experiences with TCPDF for PHP5, but Joomla! native supports PHP4
Next problem is, font. In Phoca PDF you can upload fonts, which can fit your needs (e.g. because of encoding), Phoca PDF supports helvetica too (which in fact means, no font will be pasted to created PDF document - it will have smaller size e.g. from 350kb to 17kb because font will be loaded from users PC - but this can be problem for some diacritics characters), in Joomla! there is no font manager
, see my posts about PDF support in Joomla! 1.6
http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-d ... 563d0794e7
http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-d ... ffa0ff1878
It seems like PDF feature is very problematic (and yes it is, PDF is not like HTML, it has a lot of problems). In fact creating a PDF feature means, you should be ready for negative reviews, etc. Search this forum or JED to see some negative reviews. So maybe this can be the problem for Joomla! itself.
Including TCPDF and maintain it in a CMS is very problematic, and solving possible problems (mostly they are not caused by CMS nor by TCPDF but by server) is demanding and brings it into disrepute
Is there any reason to not use Phoca PDF?
The only problem I see, is searching the core pdf link and replace it with phoca pdf link. But if hack to core files will be used, then everything should be OK, see:
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=11155#p46184
See Joomla! 1.6 version (where the pdf suffix will be used instead of phocapdf - because in Joomla! 1.6 there is no core pdf, so Phoca PDF can use the pdf view):
https://www.phoca.cz/documents/47-phoca- ... -and-usage
Jan