Ordered lists with "start" attribute in iText

Question

In a project of mine, I have a functionality that converts an HTML text into a PDF file. I use iText 2.1.7 for that, more specifically the HTMLWorker class. By the way, users can also put ordered lists (<ol>) in that, and having them starting with a given index. Like this:

The corresponding HTML is this:

<ol start="4" style="list-style-type: decimal;">
...
</ol>

However, iText - during the conversion - skips the start attribute, producing a list that starts from 1:

Is there a way to maintain that attribute, and producing the same result in the final PDF? Thank you for any insight.

I couldn't ended up with a definitive solution in the environment of mine but, for people having the same problem, converting the `start=n` into n-1 invisible `

Bruno Lowagie · Answer 1 · 2018-08-09T09:09:48.037

Your problem cannot be reproduced with recent versions of iText.

I used the following HTML file (lists.html):

<body>
<div>
    <ol start="4" style="list-style-type: decimal;">
        <li>Element 1</li>
        <li>Element 2</li>
        <li>Element 2</li>
    </ol>
</div>
</body>

Then I used the following Java code with iText 7.1.2 and pdfHTML 2.0.2.

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

import com.itextpdf.html2pdf.HtmlConverter;

public class Lists {
    public static final String SRC = "src/main/resources/html/lists.html";
    public static final String DEST = "target/results/lists.pdf";

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        File file = new File("target/results/");
        file.mkdirs();
        new Lists().createPdf(SRC, DEST);
    }

    public void createPdf(String src, String dest) throws IOException {
        HtmlConverter.convertToPdf(new File(src), new File(dest));
    }
}

The resulting PDF (lists.pdf) looks like this:

You indicate that you are using iText 2.1.7. That version dates from 2009 and the old HTMLWorker functionality has been abandoned many years ago because it was broken beyond repair. Please consult the introduction of the official HTML to PDF tutorial for an overview of the history of HTML to PDF conversion with iText.

Thanks for your try. I'm using itext-2.1.7.jar; probably that's the issue, and I simply need to upgrade it. — Andrea, Aug 09 '18 at 08:57
OK @Andrea ジーティーオー, please note that [iText 2.1.7 should no longer be used](https://developers.itextpdf.com/question/versions-older-than-5). I've updated your question and I've removed my down-vote. I'll close it by referring to a previous Stack Overflow that explains that `HTMLWorker` has been discontinued many years ago. — Bruno Lowagie, Aug 09 '18 at 09:06

Ordered lists with "start" attribute in iText

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