PDF Library modification or alternative

[Peter D Bethke]

Hello all,

I currently use the PDF lib in LP85 in a client's application. It  
works great but there is a long-standing issue that if you join  
multiple pdf's together, and they are of different size, the smaller  
ones will scale to match the larger one. Dealing with a print source,  
and clients who want to do a size comparison, this is not a good  
thing. I think the root cause for this is that you are not able to  
reset the pdf page size in mid-document.

I've been told that there is no current solution for this, short of  
modifying the underlying library to expand on the features that are  
exposed as part of the Lasso API. If anyone has experience with this  
and wants the job, email me off-list with your ideas. If there is  
something I've overlooked or the Lib has somehow changed in the last  
few months, let me know. Saving separate pdfs is not an option, its a  
merge action that creates several pages of merged multi-sized pdfs.

Best,

Peter D Bethke

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[Adam de Zoete-2]

I would like to see this supported as well. However if you don't get a
response there is a OS X command line utility joinPDF that is also using
iText that might do the job. I haven't tested it with different page
sizes yet though.

http://www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/~g.briscoe/ICL/JoinPDF.html

Adam


Peter D Bethke wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I currently use the PDF lib in LP85 in a client's application. It works
> great but there is a long-standing issue that if you join multiple pdf's
> together, and they are of different size, the smaller ones will scale to
> match the larger one. Dealing with a print source, and clients who want
> to do a size comparison, this is not a good thing. I think the root
> cause for this is that you are not able to reset the pdf page size in
> mid-document.
>
> I've been told that there is no current solution for this, short of
> modifying the underlying library to expand on the features that are
> exposed as part of the Lasso API. If anyone has experience with this and
> wants the job, email me off-list with your ideas. If there is something
> I've overlooked or the Lib has somehow changed in the last few months,
> let me know. Saving separate pdfs is not an option, its a merge action
> that creates several pages of merged multi-sized pdfs.
>
> Best,
>
> Peter D Bethke
>

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[Peter D Bethke]

Yes, the client has also solicited bids from Applescript coders who  
can certainly do the joining properly, but I'd really rather keep it  
all in Lasso's domain, because once you move outside of it there is  
definite danger of parallel processes leading to timing issues.

Peter

On Jul 23, 2008, at 10:51 AM, Adam de Zoete wrote:

> I would like to see this supported as well. However if you don't get  
> a response there is a OS X command line utility joinPDF that is also  
> using iText that might do the job. I haven't tested it with  
> different page sizes yet though.
>
> http://www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/~g.briscoe/ICL/JoinPDF.html
>
> Adam
>
>
> Peter D Bethke wrote:
>> Hello all,
>> I currently use the PDF lib in LP85 in a client's application. It  
>> works great but there is a long-standing issue that if you join  
>> multiple pdf's together, and they are of different size, the  
>> smaller ones will scale to match the larger one. Dealing with a  
>> print source, and clients who want to do a size comparison, this is  
>> not a good thing. I think the root cause for this is that you are  
>> not able to reset the pdf page size in mid-document.
>> I've been told that there is no current solution for this, short of  
>> modifying the underlying library to expand on the features that are  
>> exposed as part of the Lasso API. If anyone has experience with  
>> this and wants the job, email me off-list with your ideas. If there  
>> is something I've overlooked or the Lib has somehow changed in the  
>> last few months, let me know. Saving separate pdfs is not an  
>> option, its a merge action that creates several pages of merged  
>> multi-sized pdfs.
>> Best,
>> Peter D Bethke
>
>
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[Peter D Bethke]

That link definately is interesting - note this quote: "The code is  
actually from the iText project. ". Presuming that the code is already  
inside the itext library that Lasso uses, can't there be some way to  
make it accessible.

Peter

On Jul 23, 2008, at 10:51 AM, Adam de Zoete wrote:

> I would like to see this supported as well. However if you don't get  
> a response there is a OS X command line utility joinPDF that is also  
> using iText that might do the job. I haven't tested it with  
> different page sizes yet though.
>
> http://www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/~g.briscoe/ICL/JoinPDF.html
>
> Adam
>
>
> Peter D Bethke wrote:
>> Hello all,
>> I currently use the PDF lib in LP85 in a client's application. It  
>> works great but there is a long-standing issue that if you join  
>> multiple pdf's together, and they are of different size, the  
>> smaller ones will scale to match the larger one. Dealing with a  
>> print source, and clients who want to do a size comparison, this is  
>> not a good thing. I think the root cause for this is that you are  
>> not able to reset the pdf page size in mid-document.
>> I've been told that there is no current solution for this, short of  
>> modifying the underlying library to expand on the features that are  
>> exposed as part of the Lasso API. If anyone has experience with  
>> this and wants the job, email me off-list with your ideas. If there  
>> is something I've overlooked or the Lib has somehow changed in the  
>> last few months, let me know. Saving separate pdfs is not an  
>> option, its a merge action that creates several pages of merged  
>> multi-sized pdfs.
>> Best,
>> Peter D Bethke
>
>
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>

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[bilcorry]

Peter D Bethke wrote on 7/23/2008 9:30 AM:
> I currently use the PDF lib in LP85 in a client's application. It
> works great but there is a long-standing issue that if you join
> multiple pdf's together, and they are of different size, the smaller
> ones will scale to match the larger one.

I haven't ever done it, but couldn't you do something like this?

        var('pdf') = pdf_doc(...);
        var('join') = pdf_read(-file='mypdf.pdf');
        var('joinsize') = $join->pagesize(1);
        $pdf->insertpage($join, 1, -width=$joinsize->get(1), -height=$joinsize->get(2), -newPage=true);

I'd imagine you'd probably want to ctag it to make it easier.  And the above example does the insert for just the first page, in reality you'd want to loop through all the pages, get each one's size, then insert them using their original size.

I have no idea if that will work, but might be worth a try.


- Bil


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