Tex/PDF. Was: ideas for Andrea

In my mind, we (at least I) have to be very humble with all this "pdf
stuff". Having tools to generate pdf (reports, texts,...) is one thing,
having a reliable, correct pdf rendering engine is an another story, it
is a months/men, if not years/men, job.
I created several state-of-the-art pdf documents (eTeX, pdfeLaTeX,
correct fonts, ...). They look perfect in Acrobat Reader on my win
platform, not on the Linux platforms I tested (KDE, Konqueror).
It is more or less my conclusion.

Too true - there are a lot of PDF features that are nowhere supported outside of Acrobat / Adobe Reader.
e.g. layers, links, forms, JavaScript, other active content (widgets/plugins), overprint preview...
But I think most applications of a PDF viewer (inside wx) wouldn't need that.
Otherwise, if I think of an app that runs here: there it should be possible to use comment tools on the PDF preview for a correction workflow, and there was no other way than embedding Acrobat or JAWS PDF Editor.

Best regards,
Henning Hraban Ramm
Südkurier Medienhaus / MediaPro
Support/Admin/Development Dept.

>In my mind, we (at least I) have to be very humble with all this "pdf
>stuff". Having tools to generate pdf (reports, texts,...) is one thing,
>having a reliable, correct pdf rendering engine is an another story, it
>is a months/men, if not years/men, job.
>I created several state-of-the-art pdf documents (eTeX, pdfeLaTeX,
>correct fonts, ...). They look perfect in Acrobat Reader on my win
>platform, not on the Linux platforms I tested (KDE, Konqueror).
>It is more or less my conclusion.

Too true - there are a lot of PDF features that are nowhere supported outside of Acrobat / Adobe Reader.
e.g. layers, links, forms, JavaScript, other active content (widgets/plugins), overprint preview...

pdf is open format, but Adobe keeps adding closed features to it.

But I think most applications of a PDF viewer (inside wx) wouldn't need that.
Otherwise, if I think of an app that runs here: there it should be possible to use comment tools on the PDF preview for a correction workflow, and there was no other way than embedding Acrobat or JAWS PDF Editor.

For sake of platform independence we can stick to xpdf in all
platforms and print preview can use xpdf, it is licenced under GNU
licence.

···

On 11/23/05, Henning.Ramm@mediapro-gmbh.de <Henning.Ramm@mediapro-gmbh.de> wrote:

Best regards,
Henning Hraban Ramm
Südkurier Medienhaus / MediaPro
Support/Admin/Development Dept.

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It's better use the poppler library (http://poppler.freedesktop.org/)
instead of using the xpdf.

I already did a test wrapping the poppler library into wxWidgets and
then wrapped to wxpython.
See screenshot at http://rpedroso.freesuperhost.com/Screenshot.png

But I don't know how to implement the printing feature.

Ricardo

···

On Wed, 2005-11-23 at 13:03 +0200, viestards wrote:

On 11/23/05, Henning.Ramm@mediapro-gmbh.de > <Henning.Ramm@mediapro-gmbh.de> wrote:
> >In my mind, we (at least I) have to be very humble with all this "pdf
> >stuff". Having tools to generate pdf (reports, texts,...) is one thing,
> >having a reliable, correct pdf rendering engine is an another story, it
> >is a months/men, if not years/men, job.
> >I created several state-of-the-art pdf documents (eTeX, pdfeLaTeX,
> >correct fonts, ...). They look perfect in Acrobat Reader on my win
> >platform, not on the Linux platforms I tested (KDE, Konqueror).
> >It is more or less my conclusion.
>
> Too true - there are a lot of PDF features that are nowhere supported outside of Acrobat / Adobe Reader.
> e.g. layers, links, forms, JavaScript, other active content (widgets/plugins), overprint preview...

pdf is open format, but Adobe keeps adding closed features to it.

> But I think most applications of a PDF viewer (inside wx) wouldn't need that.
> Otherwise, if I think of an app that runs here: there it should be possible to use comment tools on the PDF preview for a correction workflow, and there was no other way than embedding Acrobat or JAWS PDF Editor.

For sake of platform independence we can stick to xpdf in all
platforms and print preview can use xpdf, it is licenced under GNU
licence.

Ricardo Pedroso wrote:

It's better use the poppler library (http://poppler.freedesktop.org/)
instead of using the xpdf.

I already did a test wrapping the poppler library into wxWidgets and
then wrapped to wxpython.
See screenshot at http://rpedroso.freesuperhost.com/Screenshot.png

How does it do the actual rendering? I saw a reference to popplerQT, is there a popplerWx?

-Chris

···

--
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
                                         
NOAA/OR&R/HAZMAT (206) 526-6959 voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax
Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception

Chris.Barker@noaa.gov

No. There isn't a popplerWx, as long as I know, but there is the
poppler glib and the poppler splash(this is the one I had used)

Ricardo

···

On Wed, 2005-11-23 at 11:44 -0800, Chris Barker wrote:

Ricardo Pedroso wrote:
> It's better use the poppler library (http://poppler.freedesktop.org/)
> instead of using the xpdf.
>
> I already did a test wrapping the poppler library into wxWidgets and
> then wrapped to wxpython.
> See screenshot at http://rpedroso.freesuperhost.com/Screenshot.png

How does it do the actual rendering? I saw a reference to popplerQT, is
there a popplerWx?

-Chris

Hello viestards,

PDF is well documented in the ps and PDF versions, the green and red
book.
There is already an open source PDF library in Python (reportlab).
Takin into account where PERL stands w/ PDF::API2 I doubt that there
will be much response...
Still, I agree that having a PDF::API2 library in Python would be
wonderful.
Worling professionally w/ PDF I can say that Adobe does not hide
anything, and the little parts that are not fully documented are easy
to find.
There are many PDF libs out there, and even Adobe's own lib is not the
best... strange as this might sound...

pdf is open format, but Adobe keeps adding closed features to it

Well, the answer is NO, that is not the case!
In printing rendering/ converting into a bitmap format (usually tiff)
is called ripping.
There are basically 3 big RIPs out there ... all other's are more or
less based on them:
Adobe, Ghostscript and Jaws...

Conclusion:
PDF is definitely NOT a weekend job. If anybody is willing to delve
into it- GREAT!
Just be aware that there is a million things to trip over.
In case anybody needs some support, write me!

CHeers,

···

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Best regards,
the_shelter mailto:pdftex@the-shelter.de