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Demo
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API Reference
For use with C, C++, Cobol, COM, Java, .NET, Objective-C,
Perl, PHP, Python, REALbasic/Xojo, RPG, Ruby
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Contents
1 Programming Concepts 7
1.1 Option Lists 7
1.1.1 Syntax 7
1.1.2 Simple Data Types 10
1.1.3 Fontsize and Action Data Types 12
1.1.4 Color Data Type 13
1.1.5 Geometric Data Types 15
1.2 Function Scopes 17
1.3 Logging 18
2 General Functions 21
2.1 Exception Handling 21
2.2 Unicode Conversion 23
2.3 Global Options 25
2.4 Creating and Deleting PDFlib Objects 32
2.5 PDFlib Virtual File System (PVF) 34
2.6 PDF Object Creation API (POCA) 37
Contents 3
6.2 Matchboxes 129
4 Contents
12.6 PDF Packages and Portfolios 233
12.7 Geospatial Features 238
Index 289
Contents 5
1 Programming Concepts
1.1 Option Lists
Option lists are a powerful yet easy method for controlling API function calls. Instead of
requiring a multitude of function parameters, many API methods support option lists,
or optlists for short. These are strings which can contain an arbitrary number of options.
Option lists support various data types and composite data like lists. In most language
bindings optlists can easily be constructed by concatenating the required keywords and
values.
Bindings C language binding: you may want to use the sprintf( ) function for constructing optlists.
.NET language binding: C# programmers should keep in mind that the AppendFormat( )
StringBuilder method uses the { and } braces to represent format items which will be re-
placed by the string representation of arguments. On the other hand, the Append( )
method does not impose any special meaning on the brace characters. Since the option
list syntax makes use of the brace characters, care must be taken in selecting the
AppendFormat( ) or Append( ) method appropriately.
1.1.1 Syntax
Formal option list syntax definition. Option lists must be constructed according to fol-
lowing rules:
> All elements (keys and values) in an option list must be separated by one or more of
the following separator characters: space, tab, carriage return, newline, equal sign ’=’.
> An outermost pair of enclosing braces is not part of the element. The sequence { }
designates an empty element.
> Separators within the outermost pair of braces no longer split elements, but are part
of the element. Therefore, an element which contains separators must be enclosed
with braces.
> If an element contains brace characters these must be protected with a preceding
backslash character.
> If an element contains a sequence of one or more backslash characters in front of a
brace, each backslash in the sequence must be protected with another backslash
character.
> Option lists must not contain binary zero values.
An option may have a list value according to its documentation in this PDFlib Refer-
ence. List values contain one or more elements (which may themselves be lists). They
are separated according to the rules above, with the only difference that the equal sign
is no longer treated as a separator.
Note Option names (i.e. the key) never contain hyphen characters. Keep this in mind since the tables
with option descriptions may sometimes contain long option names which are hyphenated.
The hyphen must be omitted when supplying the option in an option list.
Simple option lists. In many cases option lists will contain one or more key/value
pairs. Keys and values, as well as multiple key/value pairs must be separated by one or
To increase readability we recommend to use equal signs between key and value and
whitespace between adjacent key/value pairs.
Since option lists will be evaluated from left to right an option can be supplied mul-
tiply within the same list. In this case the last occurrence will overwrite earlier ones. In
the following example the first option assignment will be overridden by the second,
and key will have the value value2 after processing the option list:
key=value1 key=value2
List values. Lists contain one or more separated values, which may be simple values or
list values in turn. Lists are bracketed with { and } braces, and the values in the list must
be separated by whitespace characters. Examples:
dasharray={11 22 33} (list containing three numbers)
position={ center bottom } (list containing two keywords)
A list may also contain nested lists. In this case the lists must also be separated from
each other by whitespace. While a separator must be inserted between adjacent } and {
characters, it can be omitted between braces of the same kind:
polylinelist={{10 20 30 40} {50 60 70 80}} (list containing two lists)
If the list contains exactly one list the braces for the nested list must not be omitted:
polylinelist={{10 20 30 40}} (list containing one nested list)
Nested option lists and list values. Some options accept the type option list or list of
option lists. Options of type option list contain one or more subordinate options. Options
of type list of option lists contain one or more nested option lists. When dealing with
nested option lists it is important to specify the proper number of enclosing braces.
Several examples are listed below.
The value of the option metadata is an option list which itself contains a single op-
tion filename:
metadata={filename=info.xmp}
The value of the option fill is a list of option lists containing a single option list:
fill={{ area=table fillcolor={rgb 1 0 0} }}
The value of the option fill is a list of option lists containing two option lists:
fill={{ area=rowodd fillcolor={rgb 0 1 0} } { area=roweven fillcolor={rgb 1 0 0} }}
List containing one option list with a value that includes spaces:
attachments={{filename={foo bar.xml} }}
Common traps and pitfalls. This paragraph lists some common errors regarding op-
tion list syntax.
Braces are not separators; the following is wrong:
key1 {value1}key2 {value2} WRONG!
This will trigger the error message Unknown option 'value2'. Similarly, the following are
wrong since the separators are missing:
key{value} WRONG!
key={{value1}{value2}} WRONG!
Braces must be balanced; the following is wrong (see below for unquoted string syntax):
key={open brace {} WRONG!
This will trigger the error message Braces aren't balanced in option list 'key={open brace {}'.
A single brace as part of a string must be preceded by an additional backslash character:
key={closing brace \} and open brace \{} CORRECT!
Unquoted string values in option lists. In the following situations conflicts between
the characters in an option value and optlist syntax characters may arise:
> Passwords may contain unbalanced braces, backslashes and other special characters
> Japanese SJIS filenames in option lists (reasonable only in non-Unicode-capable lan-
guage bindings)
> Supplying JavaScript code in options is problematic due to the use of { and } braces
The braces around the string value are optional, but strongly recommended. They are
required for strings starting with a space or other separator character. Braces, separators
and backslashes within the string value are taken literally without any special interpre-
tation.
Example for specifying a 7-character password containing space and brace charac-
ters. The whole string is surrounded by braces which are not part of the option value:
password[7]={ ab}c d}
Note that if an option value in a nested option list is provided with a length count, the
enclosing option list must also supply a length count, e.g.
fitannotation[34]={contents[19]={this is a brace '}'}}
The characters { and } must be preceded by an additional \ character if they are sup-
posed to be part of the string:
password={weird\}string} (string value contains a right brace)
Content strings, hypertext strings and name strings: these can hold Unicode content in
various formats. Single bytes can be expressed by an escape sequence if the option
escapesequence is set. For details on these string types and encoding choices for string
options see the PDFlib Tutorial.
Unichar. A Unichar is a single Unicode value where several syntax variants are sup-
ported: decimal values ¹ 10 (e.g. 173), hexadecimal values prefixed with x, X, 0x, 0X, or U+
(xAD, 0xAD, U+00AD), numerical references, character references, and glyph name refer-
ences but without the ’&’ and ’;’ decoration (shy, #xAD, #173). Alternatively, literal charac-
ters can be supplied. Examples:
replacementchar=? (literal)
replacementchar=63 (decimal)
replacementchar=x3F (hexadecimal)
replacementchar=0x3F (hexadecimal)
replacementchar=U+003F (Unicode notation)
replacementchar=euro (HTML character reference)
replacementchar=.question (standard glyph name reference)
replacementchar=.marina (font-specific glyph name reference)
Single characters which happen to be a number are treated literally, not as decimal Uni-
code values:
replacementchar=3 (U+0033 THREE, not U+0003!)
Boolean. Booleans have the values true or false; if the value of a Boolean option is
omitted, the value true is assumed. As a shorthand notation noname can be used instead
of name=false:
embedding (equivalent to embedding=true)
noembedding (equivalent to embedding=false)
Keyword. An option of type keyword can hold one of a predefined list of fixed key-
words. Example:
blendmode=overlay
Floats can hold decimal floating point or integer numbers; period and comma can be
used as decimal separators for floating point values. Exponential notation is also sup-
ported. The following values are all equivalent:
size = -123.45
size = -123,45
size = -1.2345E2
size = -1.2345e+2
Percentages are numbers with a % character directly after the numerical value. Some
options allow negative percentages:
leading=120%
topoffset=-20.5%
Handle. Handles identify various types of objects, e.g. fonts, images, ICC profiles or ac-
tions. Technically these are integer values which have been returned earlier by an API
function. For example, an image handle is returned by PDF_load_image( ). Handles must
always be treated as opaque types; they must never be modified or created by the appli-
cation directly (as opposed to using a handle returned by an API function). Handles
must always be valid for the respective type of object. For example, an option which ex-
pects an image handle must not be supplied with a graphics handle, although both han-
dles are integer types.
The second variant contains a percentage, where the basis of the percentage depends on
the context (e.g. the width of the fitbox for PDF_fit_textline( ):
fontsize=8%
In the third variant, the fontsize is specified as an option list which must contain a key-
word and a number. The keyword describes the desired font metric according to Table
1.1, and the number contains the desired size. PDFlib will calculate the proper fontsize so
that the selected text metric matches the supplied value:
fontsize={capheight 5}
Action list. An action list specifies one or more actions. Each entry in the list consists
of an event keyword (trigger) and a list of action handles which must have been created