Jumpstart Tutorial

iText Presentation 26/07/2017

© 2015, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA
Jumpstart Tutorial

1. Basic Building blocks

2. PDF Syntax and Structure
3. Low level PDF creation
4. Combination of both approaches
5. Adding content to existing PDFs
6. Viewer Preferences
7. Metadata

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 Hello PDF World!
Creating a PDF programmatically
Get the PdfWriter
PdfWriter writer = new PdfWriter(dest);
Get the PdfDocument
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument(writer);
Get the Document
Document document = new Document(pdf);
Add Text : Hello PDF!
document.add(new Paragraph("Hello PDF World!"));
Close the Document
document.close();

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Basic Building blocks

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 Building blocks
Two fold approach to create and manipulate PDFs
High Level
Low Level
Mix of High and Low Level

At High Level, intuitive building blocks of a document are used

Document
Paragraph
List
Image
Chunk
Cell
Table etc

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 Use of High Level APIs
High level approach hides complexity of PDF syntax
Setting a Font
 Default font is Helvetica
 Standard Type 1 fonts: 14 fonts recognized by PDF viewers
Adding a Paragraph
// Create a PdfFont
PdfFont font =
PdfFontFactory.createFont(FontConstants.TIMES_ROMAN);

// Add a Paragraph
Paragraph paragraph = new Paragraph("iText in Bangkok");
Paragraph.setFont(font);
document.add(paragraph);

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 Use of High Level APIs
Set Font properties
 Font Size
 Italic or bold
 Font Color

//Code
Paragraph para = new Paragraph(“iText”);
para.setStrokeColor(Color.RED).setStrokeWidth(0.5f)
para.setFontSize(24);

Text text = new Text(“Hello Bangkok”);

text.setItalic();
text. setBold();
text.setStrokeColor(Color.RED)
text. setStrokeWidth(0.5f)

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 Use of High Level APIs
Adding lists
// Create a List
List list = new List();
// List items are idented by 12 user units
list.setSymbolIndent(12);
// Creates a bulleted list
list.setListSymbol("\u2022");
list.setFont(font);
// Add ListItem objects
list.add(new ListItem(“Monday”));
list.add(new ListItem(“Tuesday”));
list.add(new ListItem(“Wednesday”)) ;
// Add the list to document
document.add(list);
document.close();

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 Use of High Level APIs
Adding Images to PDF
Use of ImageDataFactory
 detects the type of image that is passed
 processes it so that it can be used in a PDF

Code for adding images:

Image fox = new Image(ImageDataFactory.create(path1));
Image dog = new Image(ImageDataFactory.create(path2));

Paragraph p = new Paragraph("The quick brown ")

p.add(fox)
p.add(" jumps over the lazy ")
p.add(dog);

document.add(p);

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 Use of High Level APIs
Adding a Table
Code
Table table = new Table(new float[]{4, 1, 3, 4, 3, 3});
table.setWidthPercent(100);

Size of array = No of table columns

Float value = Relative width of a column
The third column is three times as wide as the second column.
Width of the table relative to the available width of the page (100%)
Adding a table with Header cells

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 Use of High Level APIs
Some other high level methods
 Rotating a page
 Setting Page Margins
 Setting Text Alignment
 Setting hyphenation

Document document = new Document(pdf, PageSize.A4.rotate());

document.setMargins(20, 20, 20, 20);
document.setTextAlignment(TextAlignment.JUSTIFIED);
document.setHyphenation(new HyphenationConfig("en","uk",3,3));

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PDF syntax and structure

© 2015, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA
 PDF Syntax & Structure
PDF is a binary format
8 types of objects
 Boolean
 Numeric
 String (Literal & Hexadecimal string)
 Name
 Array Dictionary
 Stream
 Null

Objects can be direct or indirect

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Comments are preceded by “%”
%%EOF – End of File marker
%PDF-X.Y – PDF version number

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Boolean objects
true
false
Numeric objects
Integer
Real
Strings
Preceded by a slash eg: /iText
Can contain any character
Name
Literal strings: enclosed by parentheses ()
Hexadecimal strings: enclosed by angle brackets <>

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Array
Collection of PDF objects
Heterogeneous
 Enclosed in square brackets []
Dictionary
Key-Value pairs
Enclosed in Double angle brackets <<>>
Streams
Sequence of bytes of unlimited length
All streams are indirect

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Indirect objects
Unique identifier : is a positive integer
Generation number
 Positive integer, zero inclusive
 Starts at 0
Enclosed by obj and endobj

Example:
321 0 obj
(An indirect object)
endobj

This is an indirect string object with id “321” and generation number “0”. This
object can be referenced from somewhere else in the PDF by calling the id
and the generation number followed by “R”
<< /Value 321 0 R >>

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
PDF Structure has 4 sections :
Header
Body
XREF (Cross-reference Table)
Trailer

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Header
First line depicts the version
Replaced by /Version in the catalog dictionary (PDF 1.4+)
Second line indicating this is a binary file

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
XREF table
Starts with keyword “xref”
One entry per indirect object

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Trailer
Keyword trailer
Last line is %%EOF

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Body
Sequence of indirect objects
Fonts & Pages

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Document structure
Catalog is the Root dictionary
 Contains references to Page Tree, AcroForm, Outlines, Metadata, StructTreeRoot

Metadata
 Contains information about the document
 Author, Title, Creation Date, Modification Date, etc

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Page Tree
Defines the order of the pages
Two types of nodes : Page tree nodes & Page nodes

Pages
Display information
 User Units, MediaBox, Rotation, etc
Annotations
Content Stream(s)
 Describes appearance of a page
 Contains operators and operands

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
Operator
Keyword specifying an action
Drawing a line, moving the cursor, etc
Only meaningful in the content stream

Operand is a direct object needed by an operand

An operator can require more operands (e.g. Re)
Operands immediately precede operators

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 PDF Syntax & Structure

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 PDF Syntax & Structure
RUPS
iText tool to inspect PDF files
Reading and Updating PDF Syntax
AGPL

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Low Level

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 Use of Low Level Approach
Writes to a PDF content stream
PDF operators mapped to methods ()
m moveTo() method
l lineTo() method
S stroke() method

Manipulation of the layout

Use of Canvas
No concept of Page
Use of absolute positions
Access to content streams
Adding FormXObject

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 Use of Low Level Approach
Use of Tranformation matrix
drawing objects in a new co-ordinate system
concatMatrix() method
parameters of this method are elements of a transformation
matrix
a b 0 //3rd column is fixed since we work in 2D

c d 0 //a, b, c, and d can be used to scale, rotate, and skew the

coordinate system
e f 1 //e and f define the translation

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 Use of Low Level Approach
Graphics state
Properties such as the current transformation matrix, line width, stroke
color, fill color etc.
Default line width is 1 user unit
Default stroke color is black

Text state
Subset of the graphics state
Properties related to text i.e. text matrix, font and size etc

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 Use of Low Level Approach

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 Use of Low Level Approach
Color Spaces
As per PDF specification (ISO-32000)
Implemented under separate classes of iText

Commonly used color spaces are:

DeviceGray (defined by a single intensity parameter)
DeviceRgb (defined by three parameters: red, green, and blue)
DeviceCmyk (defined by four parameters: cyan, magenta, yellow and
black)

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 Use of Low Level Approach

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 Use of Low Level Approach
1 canvas.concatMatrix(1, 0, 0, 1, 0, ps.getHeight());
2 canvas.beginText()
3 .setFontAndSize(..)
4 .setLeading(14 * 1.2f)
5 .moveText(70, -40);
6 for (String s : text) {
7 //Add text and move to the next line
8 canvas.newlineShowText(s);
9 }
10 canvas.endText();

- Textbox is delimited by the beginText()/endText() methods

- Text should not be outside beginText()/endText()
- Do not nest beginText()/endText() sequences

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Combination of Both Approaches

1. Event Handlers and Renderers

2. Annotations
3. Acroforms
4. Viewer Preferences
5. Metadata

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Event Handlers and Renderers
Combining Low Level and High level approach for complex
tasks

Applying a Document renderer

Used on documents
Eg: To limit spanning of text across width of page

Applying Block Renderer

Used on block level elements
 eg: To modify properties of columns of a table individually
Eg: To modify individual cells of a table

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Event Handlers and Renderers

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Event Handlers and Renderers

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Event Handlers and Renderers

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Event Handlers and Renderers

Four types of events can be triggered:

START_PAGE : when a new page is started
END_PAGE : right before a new page is started
INSERT_PAGE : when a page is inserted
REMOVE_PAGE : when a page is removed

IEventHandler interface
handleEvent() method

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Event Handlers and Renderers

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Event Handlers and Renderers

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 Annotations

Allow user interaction

Not a part of content stream
Added on top of existing content
Several types:
Text Annotation
Link Annotation
Line Annoation
Mark up Annotation

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Annotations
ISO-32000-2 defines 28 different annotation types
Two are deprecated in PDF 2.0
iText can add all 26
Example of adding Text annotation

PdfAnnotation ann = new PdfTextAnnotation(new Rectangle(..))

.setColor(Color.GREEN)
.setTitle(new PdfString("iText"))
.setContents(“…”);
.setOpen(true);
pdf.getFirstPage().addAnnotation(ann);

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 Acroforms
Allows adding form fields
Text fields, List fields, Checkboxes, Radio buttons, Push buttons, Signature
fields

Comparison with HTML form

HTML form fields can be resized
List contents can be updated on fly

Fields have fixed place and size

More comparable to paper forms

Not very wieldy for online data collection use-cases

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 Acroforms

Typical used when :

Form is the equivalent of digital paper
Form used as a template

Form Creation
Mostly created manually (Adobe software, LibreOffice, or any other GUI
tool)
Can be done programmatically

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 Acroforms
Creating an acroform
PdfAcroForm form = PdfAcroForm.getAcroForm(PdfDocument d,Boolean b);

Fields are added as widget annotations

 Not a part of content stream

Filling an existing form

Map<String, PdfFormField> fields = form.getFormFields();
fields.get("name").setValue("James Bond");
fields.get("language").setValue("English");

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 Acroforms

Flattening of forms
End user is not allowed to change information in the PDF
Removes the user interactivity
Widget annotations are replaced with their content

form.flattenFields();//flattens all the fields

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Adding content to Existing PDFs

1. Watermarks
2. Header & Footer
3. Merging PDFs

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 Watermarks
Text or Images
Angle of watermark
Opacity of watermark
showTextAligned() method does the heavy loading

//define the text to add as a watermark

Paragraph p = new Paragraph("CONFIDENTIAL").setFontSize(60);
canvas.saveState();

//set opacity of watermark on the graphics state

PdfExtGState gs1 = new PdfExtGState().setFillOpacity(0.2f);
canvas.setExtGState(gs1);

//set the location and tilt of watermark on the page

document.showTextAligned(p,width,
height,pageNumber,TextAlign,VerticalAlign,45);
canvas.restoreState();

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 Header and Footer
Read an existing PDF
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument(PdfReader obj,PdfWriter obj);
Document document = new Document(pdf);

Get number of pages & loop over each page

int n = pdfDoc.getNumberOfPages();

for (int i = 1; i <= n; i++) {

PdfPage page = pdfDoc.getPage(i);
canvas = new PdfCanvas(page);
// add header and footer
}

Add Header
canvas.beginText()
.setFontAndSize(..) //set the Font and its size
.moveText(width,height)
.showText("I want to believe")
.endText();

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 Header & Footer
Add Footer
//Draw footer line
canvas.setStrokeColor(Color.BLACK)
.setLineWidth(.2f)
.moveTo(width, 20)
.lineTo(width, 20)
.stroke();

Add Page number

//Draw page number in format : X of Y
canvas.beginText()
.setFontAndSize(..)
.moveText(width, 10)
.showText(String.valueOf(i))// i is the current page number
.showText(" of ")
.showText(String.valueOf(n))// n is the total no of pages
.endText();

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 Merging PDFs
Merging content of 2 PDF documents

Use of PdfMerger Utility Class

Partial Merging
Selective pages from 2 documents are to be merged
PdfMerger merge(PdfDocument from, List<Integer> pages)
PdfMerger merge(PdfDocument from, int fromPage, int toPage)

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 Merging PDFs
//1. Define new merger
PdfMerger merger = new PdfMerger(newPdf);

//2. Add pages from the first document

merger.merge(firstPdf, 1, firstPdf.getNumberOfPages());

//3. Add pages from the second pdf document

merger.merge(secondPdf, 1, secondPdf.getNumberOfPages());

//4. merge and close

firstPdf.close();
secondPdf.close();
newPdf.close();

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 Merging PDFs
Merging Forms
PDF can contain only one form
Merging is done using PdfPageFormCopier Class
Duplicate form fields need to be renamed

Merging “Flattened” Forms

Use of smart mode
Use of normal mode

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Viewer Preferences

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 Viewer Preferences
Set default behaviour for document
Setting Page Mode : for panel visibility
 PdfName.UseNone
 PdfName.UseOutlines
 PdfName.UseThumbs
 PdfName.FullScreen
 PdfName.UseOC
 PdfName.UseAttachments

Setting Page Layout : display of pages of PDF

 PdfName.SinglePage
 PdfName.OneColumn
 PdfName.TwoColumnLeft
 PdfName.TwoColumnRight
 PdfName.TwoPageLeft
 PdfName.TwoPageRight

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 Viewer Preferences

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 Viewer Preferences
Use of PdfViewerPreferences
Viewer related preferences
setFitWindow(), setHideMenuBar(), setHideToolbar(),
setCenterWindow(), setDisplayDocTitle(), setNonFullScreenPageMode(),
setDirection(), setViewArea() etc
Printer related preferences
setPrintArea(), setPrintScaling(),setNumCopies() etc

pdf.getCatalog().setPageLayout(PdfName.TwoColumnRight);
pdf.getCatalog().setPageMode(PdfName.UseThumbs);
pdf.getCatalog().setViewerPreferences(preferences);

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Metadata

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 Metadata

Stored in the info-dictionary of a PDF

Contains key-value pairs
PdfDocumentInfo Class corresponds to info-dictionary
set Title, set Author, set Producer, add Creation Date etc

PdfDocumentInfo info = pdf.getDocumentInfo();

info.setTitle("A Strange Case");

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 Metadata
XMP MetaData
Metadata store as XML inside a PDF
More Flexibility

Use of WriterProperties Class to add XML

set Full compression mode or compression levels (0 to 9)
set Passwords on the document
set PDF version
WriterProperties w = new WriterProperties();
w.addXmpMetadata();
w.setFullCompressionMode(true);
w.setStandardEncryption(user, owner, permissions, encryptionAlgo);

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 iText 7 modules
pdfSweep
I/O Barcodes

Forms Signatures
Kernel Layout

pdfTest
pdfCalligraph

PDF/A

pdfInvoice

AsianFonts RUPS

pdfDebug
Part of iText 7 Core package, covered by AGPL license

iText 7 add-on, license key and commercial license required

Optional modules
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Thank You!

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