PDFlib - Summary

by PDFlib - Product Type: Component / .NET Class / Managed/Unmanaged Code - without COM / ActiveX DLL / DLL / JavaBean / Java Class

Summary

PDFlib by PDFlib

Generate PDF documents on-the-fly. PDFlib is a component that allows you to programmatically create PDF files from within your own server-side or client-side software. PDFlib doesn't make use of third-party software for generating PDFs, nor does it require any other tools. PDFlib is available for all major operating systems and development environments. It offers a variety of new and improved functions, including a new table formatter, PDF/A output for longtime archiving, AES encryption, integrated pCOS analyzing tools, a repair and optimization mode for input PDFs, and numerous other new features.

Overview

PDFlib makes PDF generation possible without wading through the PDF specification. While PDFlib tries to hide technical PDF details from the user, a general understanding of PDF is useful. In order to make the best use of PDFlib, application programmers should ideally be familiar with the basic graphics model of PostScript (and therefore PDF). However, a reasonably experienced application programmer who has dealt with any graphics API for screen display or printing shouldn’t have much trouble adapting to the PDFlib API as described in the PDFlib manual.

Server Deployment: PDFlib is thread-safe, i.e. it can safely be used in multi-threaded server applications. The COM edition is both-threaded for improved performance. C or C++ library clients can install their own memory management and error handling routines. PDFlib's memory management has been rigorously engineered and tested for memory leaks in order to guarantee 24-hour deployment without any shutdown periods.

Features

PDFlib is a library which allows you to generate files in Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF). PDFlib acts as a backend to your own programs

PDFlib doesn't make use of third-party software for generating PDF, nor does it require any other tools. PDFlib is available for all major operating environments and development environments

PDFlib offers many useful functions for creating text, graphics, images, and hypertext elements in PDF

A PDFlib program can be used for dynamically generating PDF – reflecting user input or dynamic data retrieved from web or database servers. The optional add-on PDF Import Library (PDI) can be used to integrate pages from existing PDF documents into the generated output. With the PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS) as further add-on, server side personalization of PDF files becomes possible

With the programmer only being responsible for producing the data from whatever source, PDFlib takes the task of generating the PDF code which visually represents the data

PDFlib can generate PDF data directly in memory (instead of on file), resulting in better performance and avoiding the need for temporary files, thus being the fastest PDF-generating method

What's new in PDFlib 8?

New PDF Features for Acrobat 9

PDFlib supports various PDF features according to Acrobat 9 (technically: PDF 1.7 Adobe extension level 3).

External graphical content (Reference XObjects)

Layer variants (also called layer configurations)

PDF Portfolios

Georeferenced PDF

AES-256 encryption and Unicode passwords

PDFlib+PDI and PPS can import and process Acrobat 9 documents.

Font Handling and Text Output

Quite a number of new typographical features can be found in PDFlib 8.

Complex script shaping and bidirectional formatting for Arabic, Thai, Hindi, and many other writing systems

Fallback fonts

OpenType layout features, e.g. ligatures and swash characters

Retain fonts across documents

SING fonts for CJK Gaiji characters

Redesigned font engine

Wrap text around image clipping paths

Text on a path

PDFlib Block Plugin and PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS)

The PDFlib Block Plugin is used to prepare PDF documents for Block filling (personalization) with the PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS).

Preview PPS Block processing in Acrobat

Redesigned user interface

Snap-to-grid for quickly layout out Blocks in a raster

Additional Block properties, e.g. for transparency

Clone PDF/A or PDF/X status of the Block container

Leverage PDFlib 8 features with Blocks

Other important features

There are a number of other important new features:

Reusable path objects

PDF/X-4 and PDF/X-5

Alpha channel in TIFF and PNG images

JBIG2-compressed images

Compressed object streams and cross-reference streams

Built-in PANTONE Goe color libraries

What's New in PDFlib V7.0?

A New Table formatter - automatically places rows and columns according to user preferences, and splits tables across multiple columns or pages

Textflow enhancements

Links and other interactive elements can automatically be created from text fragments in a Textflow

Space for images can be reserved in a text column

The Textflow formatter supports leaders,e.g. repeated dots between an entry in a table of contents and the corresponding page number

Text contents and formatting options can be supplied separately to the Textflow engine in an arbitrary number of steps. This eliminates the need for creating a buffer containing the full text along with inline formatting options

Character classes for formatting decisions can now be redefined, e.g. specify whether the »/« character will be treated as a letter or punctuation in formatting decisions

Other formatting features

Decimal tabs and leader characters are supported in single-line text (in addition to multi-line Textflows)

A new stamp function calculates optimized size and position for text stamps across a rectangle

Improved query functions for text geometry

Generate PDF documents on-the-fly.

PartNumbers: PC-513759-252660 513759-252660 PC-513759-252663 513759-252663 PC-513759-252709 513759-252709 PC-513759-252666 513759-252666 PC-513759-252669 513759-252669 PC-513759-252672 513759-252672 PC-513759-252710 513759-252710 PC-513759-252675 513759-252675 PC-513759-252678 513759-252678 PC-513759-252702 513759-252702 PC-513759-252703 513759-252703 PC-513759-252711 513759-252711 PC-513759-252704 513759-252704 PC-513759-252705 513759-252705 PC-513759-252706 513759-252706 PC-513759-252712 513759-252712 PC-513759-252707 513759-252707 PC-513759-252708 513759-252708 PC-513759-252715 513759-252715 PC-513759-252716 513759-252716 PC-513759-252717 513759-252717 PC-513759-252718 513759-252718 PC-513759-252719 513759-252719 PC-513759-252720 513759-252720 PC-513759-252721 513759-252721 PC-513759-252722 513759-252722 PC-513759-252723 513759-252723 PC-513759-252681 513759-252681 PC-513759-252684 513759-252684 PC-513759-252713 513759-252713 PC-513759-252687 513759-252687 PC-513759-252690 513759-252690 PC-513759-252693 513759-252693 PC-513759-252714 513759-252714 PC-513759-252696 513759-252696 PC-513759-252699 513759-252699

PurchaseOptions: PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) Windows Server 2003/2008, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) Linux x86/IA-64/x86_64/EM64T, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) FreeBSD on x86/x86_64/EM64T, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) Sun Solaris on x86/sparc, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) Apple Mac OS X Server PPC/Intel, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) Mac OS X PPC/Intel, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) HP-UX 11 on PA-RISC/IA-64, PDFlib 8 (1 Machine License) IBM AIX 5/6, PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Windows Server 2003/2008 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Linux x86/IA-64/x86_64/EM64T (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for FreeBSD on x86/x86_64/EM64T (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Sun Solaris on x86/sparc (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Mac OS X Server PPC/Intel (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Mac OS X PPC/Intel (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for HP-UX 11 on PA-RISC/IA-64 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (5 to 9 Machine Licenses) 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for IBM AIX 5/6 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for Windows Server 2003/2008 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for Linux x86/IA-64/x86_64/EM64T (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for FreeBSD on x86/x86_64/EM64T (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for Sun Solaris on x86/sparc (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for Apple Mac OS X Server PPC/Intel (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for Apple Mac OS X PPC/Intel (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for HP-UX 11 on PA-RISC/IA-64 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (10 or more Machine Licenses) 10 or more Machine Licenses for IBM AIX 5/6 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 10), PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for Windows Server 2003/2008 from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for Linux x86/IA-64/x86_64/EM64T from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for FreeBSD on x86/x86_64/EM64T from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for Sun Solaris on x86/sparc from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for Mac OS X Server PPC/Intel from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for Mac OS X PPC/Intel from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for HP-UX 11 on PA-RISC/IA-64 from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7, PDFlib 8 (Upgrades) 1 Machine Upgrade License for IBM AIX 5/6 from PDFLib / PDFLib+PDI / PPS V6 or V7

Resources: Read the PDFlib Case Study - discusses various scenarios where PDF/A application problems can be solved with PDFlib products, Read the PDF/A Whitepaper - discusses PDFlib features for creating PDF/A output suitable for long-term document archival, Read the XMP Whitepaper - discusses XMP, XMP support in PDFlib products and possible XMP workflows, Read the PDFlib General License and Support Conditions, Read the PDFlib API Reference for Windows, Read the PDFlib Tutorial document, Download the PDFlib 8 IBM AIX evaluation on to your computer - Output displays evaluation label, Download the PDFlib 8 HP UX evaluation on to your computer - Output displays evaluation label, Download the PDFlib 8 FreeBSD evaluation on to your computer - Output displays evaluation label, Download the PDFlib 8 Linux evaluation on to your computer - Output displays evaluation label, Download the PDFlib 8 MacOS X evaluation on to your computer - Output displays evaluation label, Download the PDFlib 8 Solaris on SPARC evaluation on to your computer - Output displays evaluation label, Download the PDFlib 8 Windows evaluation onto your computer - Output Displays Evaluation Label

Operating System for Deployment: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, Sun Solaris 9, Sun Solaris 8, HP-UX 11.x, IBM AIX 5.x, Linux Kernel V2.4.x, RedHat Linux 7.x, SUSE Linux 8.x, FreeBSD, FreeBSD 5.x, Mac OS X

Architecture of Product: 32Bit, 64Bit, MAC

Product Type: Component

Component Type: .NET Class, Managed/Unmanaged Code - without COM, ActiveX DLL, DLL, JavaBean, Java Class

Built Using: ActiveX Template Library (ATL), Visual C# .NET, Java 2 SDK (JDK 1.3)

Compatible Containers: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0, Microsoft Visual Basic 2008, Microsoft Visual Basic 2005, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2003, Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 2008, Microsoft Visual C++ 2005, Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003, Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, Microsoft Visual C# 2008, Microsoft Visual C# 2005, Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003, Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Internet Information Server 6.0, Microsoft Internet Information Server 5.0, Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, C++Builder 6, C++Builder 5, JBuilder 8, JBuilder 7, JBuilder 6, Sybase PowerBuilder 9.0, Sybase PowerBuilder 8.0, Visual Café 4.0, Visual Café 3.0, NetBeans IDE 3.x, Sun Java Workshop, Sun Forte V2.0 for Java, Sun ONE Studio 4 (Formerly FORTE for Java), Sun ONE Studio 5 (Formerly FORTE Compiler Collection), .NET Framework 3.5, .NET Framework 3.0, .NET Framework 2.0, Eclipse V3.3

Product Class: Business Components

Keywords: PDF PDFlib GmbH pdf Professional Partner PDF PDF/X Acrobat Unicode encryption generate Adobe PDF-lib Lib