PDF

This module allows you to interact with PDF documents

This module provides PDF generation functionality to Boxlang. In conjunction, the BoxLang+ licensed version of the module contributes advanced PDF functionality such as watermarking, form field completion and much more.

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

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

Components

The free tier version of 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 );

Reporting Issues

You can also file a bug report or improvement suggestion via Jira.