Boxlang 1.x Stable Released
BoxLang : A Modern Dynamic JVM Language
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PDF

This module allows you to interact with PDF documents

This module provides PDF generation functionality to Boxlang

# For Operating Systems using our Quick Installer.
install-bx-module bx-pdf

# Using CommandBox to install for web servers.
box install bx-pdf

Components

This module contributes the following Components to the language:

  • document - the wrapping component for creating PDF documents

    • The following attributes are available to the document component

      • format - The format of the document to generate. This attribute is unused and will be removed in a future release as only PDF generation is supported. Any other format requested will throw an error.

      • encryption - The encryption level to use for the document. Default is none. Possible values are 128-bit, 40-bit, none.

      • localUrl - If true, the document will be generated with local URLs. Default is false.

      • variable - The name of the variable to store the generated PDF binary.

      • backgroundVisible - If true, the background will be visible. Default is true.

      • bookmark - If true, bookmarks will be generated. Default is true.

      • htmlBookmark - If true, it is possible to convert outlines to a list of named anchors (<a name="anchor_id">label</a>) or a headings structure ( <h1>... <h6> ). Hyperlink jumps within the same document are supported as well.

      • orientation - The orientation of the document. Default is portrait. Possible values are portrait, landscape

      • scale - The percentage to scale the document. Must be less than or equal to 100.

      • marginBottom - The bottom margin of the document.

      • marginLeft - The left margin of the document.

      • marginRight - The right margin of the document.

      • marginTop - The top margin of the document.

      • pageWidth - The width of the page in inches.

      • pageHeight - The height of the page in inches.

      • fontEmbed - If true, fonts will be embedded in the document. Default is true.

      • fontDirectory - The directory where fonts are located.

      • openpassword - The password to open protected documents.

      • ownerPassword - The password to access restricted permissions.

      • pageType - The type of page to generate. Default is A4.

      • pdfa - If true, the document will be generated as a PDF/A document. Default is false.

      • filename - The filename to write the PDF to. If not provided and a variable argument is not provided, the PDF will be written to the browser (web-context only ).

      • overwrite - If true, the file will be overwritten if it exists. Default is false.

      • saveAsName - The name to save the PDF as in the browser.

      • src - A full URL or path relative to the web root of the source.

      • srcfile - The absolute path to a source file.

      • mimeType - The mime type of the source. Default is text/html. Possible values are text/html, text/plain, application/xml, image/jpeg, image/png, image/bmp, image/gif.

      • unit - The unit of measurement to use. Default is inches. Possible values are in, cm.

    • The following attributes are not currently implemented and will throw an error if used:

      • permissions - Granular permissability is not yet supported.

      • permissionspassword - Granular permissability is not yet supported.

      • userPassword - Granular permissability is not yet supported.

      • authPassword - Granular permissability is not yet supported.

      • authUser - Granular permissability is not yet supported.

      • userAgent - HTTP user agent identifier.

      • proxyHost - IP address or server name for proxy host.

      • proxyPassword - password for the proxy host.

      • proxyPort - port of the proxy host.

      • proxyUser - user name for the proxy host.

      • tagged - yes|no ACF OpenOffice integration not supported.

      • formfields - yes|no Form field attributes are not implemented in standard module.

      • formsType - FDF|PDF|HTML|XML Form field attributes are not implemented in standard module.

  • documentitem - specifies header, footer, and page breaks within a document body or documentsection.

    • The following attributes are available to the documentitem component:

      • type A string which dictates the type of item. Accepted values are pagebreak|header|footer.

      • evalAtPrint This attribute is deprecated as all content is evaluated when the body of the tag is processed.

  • documentsection - Divides a PDF document into sections. Used in conjunction with a documentitem component, each section can have unique headers, footers, and page numbers. A page break will always precede a section.

    • The following attributes are available to the documentsection component:

      • marginBottom - The bottom margin of the section in the unit specified in the document component.

      • marginLeft - The left margin of the section in the unit specified in the document component.

      • marginRight - The right margin of the section in the unit specified in the document component.

      • marginTop - The top margin of the section in the unit specified in the document component.

      • mimeType - The mime type of the content. If the content is a file, the mime type is determined by the file extension. If the content is a URL, the mime type is determined by the HTTP response.

      • name - The name of the section. This is used as a bookmark for the section.

      • srcfile - The absolute path of the file to include in the section.

      • src - The URL or path relative to the web root of the content to include in the section.

    • The following attributes are not currently implemented and will throw an error if used

      • userAgent - The HTTP user agent identifier to use when fetching the content from a URL.

      • authPassword - The authentication password to use when fetching the content from a URL.

      • authUser - The authentication user name to use when fetching the content from a URL.

Examples

A simple example using templating syntax to generate a physical file:

<bx:set testImage = "https://ortus-public.s3.amazonaws.com/logos/ortus-medium.jpg"/>
<bx:document format="pdf" filename="/path/to/mydocument.pdf">
    <!--- Header for all sections --->
    <bx:documentitem type="header">
        <h1>This is my Header</h1>
    </bx:documentitem>
    <!--- Footer for all sections --->
    <bx:documentitem type="footer">
        <h1>This is My Footer</h1>
        <bx:output><p>Page #bxdocument.currentpagenumber# of #bxdocument.totalpages#</p></bx:output>
    </bx:documentitem>
    <!--- Document section, which will be bookmarked as "Section 1" --->
    <bx:documentsection name="Section 1">
        <h1>Section 1</h1>
    </bx:documentsection>
    <!--- Document section, which will be bookmarked as "Section 2" --->
    <bx:documentsection name="Section 2">
        <h1>Section 2</h1>
    </bx:documentsection>
    <!--- Document section, which contains an image --->
    <bx:documentsection src="#testImage#">
</bx:document>

Example, using script syntax to create a variable containing the binary contents of the PDF, which is then written to a file

bx:document format="pdf" variable="myPDF"{
    bx:documentsection name="Section 1"{
        writeOutput("<h1>Section 1</h1>");
        include "/path/to/section1.bxm";
    }
    bx:documentsection name="Section 2"{
        writeOutput("<h1>Section 2</h1>");
        include "/path/to/section2.bxm";
    }
}

fileWrite( "/path/to/mydocument.pdf", myPDF );

GitHub Repository and Reporting Issues

Visit the GitHub repository for release notes. You can also file a bug report or improvement suggestion via Jira.

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