Text::PDF
There seem to be a growing plethora of Perl modules for creating and
manipulating PDF files. This module is no exception. Beyond the standard
features you would expect from a PDF manipulation module there are:
FEATURES
. Works with more than one PDF file open at once
. Supports TrueType fonts as well as the base 14 (requires Font::TTF module)
including Type0 glyph based fonts (for Unicode), and subsetting
UN-FEATURES (which may one day be fixed)
. No nice higher level interface for rendering and Page description insertion
. No support for Type1 or Type3 fonts
. No higher level support of annotations, bookmarks, hot-links, etc.
. This is beta code although new features should be considered alpha
In summary, this module provides a strong (IMO) base for working with PDF files
but lacks some finesse. Users should know their way around the PDF specification.
Included in the examples directory are some example programs starting from very
simple PDF creation programs and working up. More extensive samples are included
as scripts.
SCRIPTS
Installed with this package are the following scripts:
pdfbklt Turns documents into booklets
pdfrevert Removes one layer of edits from a PDF file
pdfstamp Adds the given text in a given font, size to all pages at given
location
EXAMPLES
Included in the examples directory are some smaller utilities which are also
useful, so don't throw them away!
graph Makes graph paper - not very complex
hello The "Hello World" program
pdfaddobj Debug aid to insert data as an object in a file
pdfaddpg Adds a blank page to a PDF file at any location
pdfcrop Adds crop marks to a page (see cd.cfg)
pdfgetobj Extracts a particular object from a PDF file (debugging aid)
REQUIREMENTS
This module set requires Compress::Zlib. It is used for compressed streams and
within the Standard Fonts.
INSTALLATION
If you want to have TrueType support in your application, then you will
need to install the Font::TTF module (available from CPAN) as well.
Installation is as per the standard module installation approach:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
If working on Win32 platform, then try:
perl Makefile.PL
dmake
dmake test
dmake install
Your mileage may vary
CONTACT
Bugs, comments and offers of collaboration to: Martin_Hosken@sil.org