PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS) - Summary

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Summary

PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS) by PDFlib

Generate PDFs on the fly. PDFlib is a development tool for PDF-enabling your software or generating PDFs on your server. PDFlib offers a simple-to-use API for programmatically creating 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+PDI can import existing PDF files. PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS) includes PDFlib+PDI, plus additional functions for automatically filling PDFlib blocks. PPS also includes the PDFlib Block Plugin for creating blocks interactively. PDFlib is available for all major operating environments and development environments.

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 PDF Import Library (PDI) can be used to integrate pages from existing PDF documents into the generated output. With the PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS), 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.

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.

API: PDFlib offers an easy-to-use programming interface for the application programmer. The PDFlib API shields the programmer from the technicalities of PDF generation. Any programmer with decent graphics or print output experience is able to use PDFlib quickly. The PDFlib reference manual explains the basics of PDFlib programming, and provides a detailed reference to all API functions. Sample programs are provided for all supported environments.

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.

The PDFlib line is available in four different products:

PDFlib includes functions for generating PDF output

PDFlib+PDI includes all PDFlib functions, plus the PDF Import Library (PDI) for including existing PDF pages in the generated output

PDFlib Personalization Server (PPS) includes PDFlib+PDI, plus additional functions for automatically filling PDFlib blocks. PPS also includes the PDFlib Block Plugin for creating blocks interactively

PDFlib PLOP (PDF Linearization, Optimization, Privacy) is the tool for the high volume, high performance PDF workflow. PLOP is a standalone tool that can read, linearize, optimize and encrypt PDFs without the need for additional third-party software

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 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

Note: For more information, please refer to What's New Document from the Evals & Downloads page

Generate PDFs on the fly.

PartNumbers: PC-514767-252724 514767-252724 PC-514767-252727 514767-252727 PC-514767-252730 514767-252730 PC-514767-252733 514767-252733 PC-514767-252736 514767-252736 PC-514767-252739 514767-252739 PC-514767-252742 514767-252742 PC-514767-252787 514767-252787 PC-514767-252790 514767-252790 PC-514767-252766 514767-252766 PC-514767-252769 514767-252769 PC-514767-252772 514767-252772 PC-514767-252775 514767-252775 PC-514767-252778 514767-252778 PC-514767-252781 514767-252781 PC-514767-252784 514767-252784 PC-514767-252793 514767-252793 PC-514767-252796 514767-252796 PC-514767-252745 514767-252745 PC-514767-252748 514767-252748 PC-514767-252751 514767-252751 PC-514767-252754 514767-252754 PC-514767-252757 514767-252757 PC-514767-252760 514767-252760 PC-514767-252763 514767-252763 PC-514767-252799 514767-252799 PC-514767-252802 514767-252802

PurchaseOptions: PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License Windows Server 2000/2003/2008, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License Windows 2000/XP/Vista, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License Linux x86/IA-64/x86_64/EM64T, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License FreeBSD on x86/x86_64/EM64T, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License Sun Solaris on x86/sparc, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License Mac OS X Server PPC/Intel, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License Mac OS X PPC/Intel, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License HP-UX 11 on PA-RISC/IA-64, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 1 Machine License IBM AIX 5/6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 5 to 9 Machine Licenses 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 5 to 9 Machine Licenses 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Windows 2000/XP/Vista (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib Personalization Server 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 Personalization Server 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 Personalization Server 8 - 5 to 9 Machine Licenses 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Sun Solaris on x86/sparc (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 5 to 9 Machine Licenses 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Apple Mac OS X Server PPC/Intel (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - 5 to 9 Machine Licenses 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for Apple Mac OS X PPC/Intel (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib Personalization Server 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 Personalization Server 8 - 5 to 9 Machine Licenses 5 to 9 Machine Licenses for IBM AIX 5/6 (Price per License - Minimum quantity 5), PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 from PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for Windows 2000/XP/Vista from PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for Linux x86/IA-64/x86_64/EM64Tfrom PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for FreeBSD on x86/x86_64/EM64T from PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for Sun Solaris on x86/sparc from PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for Apple Mac OS X Server PPC/Intel from PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for Apple Mac OS X PPC/Intel from PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for HP-UX 11 on PA-RISC/IA-64 from PPS V5 or V6, PDFlib Personalization Server 8 - Upgrade from PDFlib Personalization Server V5 or V6 1 Machine Upgrade License for IBM AIX 5/6 from PPS V5 or V6

Resources: Read the PDFlib API Reference for Windows, 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, 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 Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows ME, Windows 2000, UNIX System V Release 4, 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, Static Link Library, Java Servlet, Java Class

Built Using: Visual C++ 6.0

General: Supports Apartment Model Threading, Supports Free Threading

Application Servers: Adobe JRun 4.0, Oracle WebLogic Server 6.1 (formerly BEA)

Compatible Containers: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0, Microsoft Visual Basic 2005, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2003, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 2005, Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003, Microsoft Visual C++ .NET, Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0, Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0, Microsoft Visual C# 2005, Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003, Microsoft Visual C# .NET, Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Access 2002, Microsoft Access 2000, Microsoft Internet Information Server 5.0, Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0, C++Builder 6, C++Builder 5, Delphi 7.0, Delphi 6.0, Delphi 5.0, JBuilder 7, JBuilder 6, IBM VisualAge for Java 4, Sybase PowerBuilder 9.0, Sybase PowerBuilder 8.0, .NET Framework 2.0, .NET Framework 1.1, .NET Framework 1.0, Eclipse V3.3

Product Class: Business Components

Keywords: PDF PDFlib GmbH Professional Partner PDF import Acrobat Unicode encryption generate