Portable Document Format: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 11:34, 8 July 2026

A proprietary format launched in 1992, owned by Adobe until 2008, after which it was released and relicensed as an ISO standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format

Readings

PDF & Postscript

Computer History Museum documented the history of postscript

PDF manipulating/editing tools

pdftk (the PDF toolkit)

pdfimages (part of poppler-utils)

pdfunite (part of poppler-utils)

pdftotext (part of poppler-utils)

$ pdftotext filename.pdf
$ pdftotext -layout filename.pdf (Maintain (as best as possible) the original physical layout of the text.)

pdfinfo (part of poppler-utils)

$ pdfinfo filename.pdf
$ pdfinfo -meta filename.pdf (print metadata)
$ pdfinfo -url filename.pdf (print all urls)
$ pdfinfo -dests filename.pdf (print all internal links)

pdffonts (part of poppler-utils)

rgb2cmyk.sh (using Ghostscript), part of OSP's pdfutils

coloseperation.sh (using Ghostscript), part of OSP's pdfutils

resize.sh (using Ghostscript), via OSP

Signature PDF (web GUI for pdf signing, editing, combining, compression)

imposition tools (multiple)

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-A proprietary format owned by Adobe until 2008, when it was released and relicensed as an ISO standard.
+__TOC__
+A proprietary format launched in 1992, owned by Adobe until 2008, after which it was released and relicensed as an ISO standard.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
+== Readings==
 * https://www.vice.com/en/article/pam43n/why-the-pdf-is-secretly-the-worlds-most-important-file-format
-* https://planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/warnock_camelot.pdf
+* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160527105336/http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/warnock_camelot.pdf https://planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/warnock_camelot.pdf]
+== PDF & Postscript ==
+* [https://computerhistory.org/blog/postscript-a-digital-printing-press/ Computer History Museum documented the history of postscript]
+==PDF manipulating/editing tools==
+[https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ pdftk] (the PDF toolkit)
+[https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/poppler-utils/pdfimages.1.en.html pdfimages] (part of poppler-utils)
+[https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/poppler-utils/pdfunite.1.en.html pdfunite] (part of poppler-utils)
+[https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/poppler-utils/pdftotext.1.en.html pdftotext] (part of poppler-utils)
+ $ pdftotext filename.pdf
+ $ pdftotext -layout filename.pdf (Maintain (as best as possible) the original physical layout of the text.)
+[https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/poppler-utils/pdfinfo.1.en.html pdfinfo] (part of poppler-utils)
+ $ pdfinfo filename.pdf
+ $ pdfinfo -meta filename.pdf (print metadata)
+ $ pdfinfo -url filename.pdf (print all urls)
+ $ pdfinfo -dests filename.pdf (print all internal links)
+[https://manpages.debian.org/stretch/poppler-utils/pdffonts.1.en.html pdffonts] (part of poppler-utils)
-== Free software tools that work with PDF ==
+[http://osp.kitchen/tools/pdfutils/tree/master/rgb2cmyk.sh#project-detail-files rgb2cmyk.sh] (using Ghostscript), part of [http://osp.kitchen/tools/pdfutils/ OSP's pdfutils]
-Thanks to the [[Ghostscript]] project, there are many free software tools that work with postscript.
-* pdftk
+[http://osp.kitchen/tools/pdfutils/tree/master/colorSeparation.sh#project-detail-files coloseperation.sh] (using Ghostscript), part of [http://osp.kitchen/tools/pdfutils/ OSP's pdfutils]
-* poppler
-* [[Scribus]]
-* [[Imagemagick]]
-== Cookbook ==
+[[resize.sh]] (using Ghostscript), via [http://osp.kitchen OSP]
- apt-get install poppler-utils
+[https://github.com/24eme/signaturepdf Signature PDF] (web GUI for pdf signing, editing, combining, compression)
- pdftocairo -png mydoc.pdf
+[[Imposition|imposition tools]] (multiple)
-Creates a series of [[PNG]] files.
+==See also==
-== Python tools to manipulate / generate PDF ==
+* [[How to PDF]]
-* [http://xxyxyz.org/flat/ flat]
+* [[Imposition]] tools, to rearrange PDFs
-* [http://www.reportlab.com/opensource/ reportlab]
+* [[Typesetting Tools]]
-* [https://github.com/mstamy2/PyPDF2 pyPDF2]
+* [[CSS Print]]
+* [[:Category:PagedMedia]]
+* [[:Category:FLOSS design]]
-== Examples ==
+[[Category:PagedMedia]]
-An example using reportlab (see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2252726/how-to-create-pdf-files-in-python)
+[[Category:Cookbook]]
-<source lang="python">
-from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
-from reportlab.lib.units import inch, cm
-c = canvas.Canvas('ex.pdf')
-c.drawImage('ar.jpg', 0, 0, 10*cm, 10*cm)
-c.showPage()
-c.save()
-</source>