Why You Need the PHP gd Extension
The PHP GD extension is essential for image manipulation tasks, such as generating charts, resizing images, and creating thumbnails dynamically on your website or application.
If you are using PhpSpreadsheet, the gd extension is required to handle image-related functionalities in spreadsheets, such as inserting or processing images inside .xlsx files.
Without the gd extension, you may encounter errors like this.
gd Extension Is Missing Error After Upgrading PHP
Recently, I upgraded my PHP version on the Ubuntu server to 8.2, but the new version did not automatically install the extensions, leaving PHP 8.2 without gd. This caused my deployment pipeline to fail, displaying the missing gd extension error during CI/CD deployments.
✅ Verify that gd is enabled
Run the following command to verify gd status.
php -m | grep gd
If enabled, you will see
gd
Alternatively, you can run the following command.
php -i | grep "GD Support"
and it should return:
GD Support => enabled
If you do not see these outputs, you need to install the gd extension for your PHP version.
✅ Install the gd extension for PHP 8.2 on Ubuntu
Run the following command, and it will install the gd extension for PHP 8.2, allowing your application and pipelines to handle image functionalities without errors.
sudo apt install php8.2-gd
It will take a few minutes to complete the full installation process.
🚀 Bonus Tips:
To ensure PhpSpreadsheet works without extension-related issues, run:
sudo apt install php8.2-ctype php8.2-fileinfo php8.2-mbstring php8.2-gd php8.2-xml php8.2-zip php8.2-iconv
These extensions are often needed for spreadsheet operations, file handling, and multi-byte string support.
✅ Verify currently enabled extensions
PHP by default activates some of these extensions (like ctype, fileinfo, iconv, simplexml, and dom), but explicitly installing them ensures no environment mismatch. Run the following command to check the output.
If you need advanced image manipulation (transparent PNGs, high-quality resizing, etc.), you can install Imagick:
sudo apt install php8.2-imagick
You are now ready to continue using PhpSpreadsheet and other PHP libraries requiring gd without errors on your Ubuntu server with PHP 8.2.
