NAME
PDF::Reuse::Tutorial - How to produce PDF-files with PDF::Reuse
DESCRIPTION
In this tutorial I will show some aspects of PDF::Reuse, so you should be able to use it in your own programs. Most important is how to produce and reuse PDF-code, and then if you are interested, you can look at Graphics and JavaScript, so you can to do special things.
Reusing code:
You can take advantage of what has been done before, it is not necessary to start from scratch every time you create a PDF-file. You use old PDF-files as a source for forms, images, fonts and texts. The components are taken as they are, or rearranged, and you add your own texts and you produce new output.
If you don't care too much about the size of your templates, you should make them with a commercial, visual tool, that's most practical; and then you should use PDF::Reuse to mass produce your files. In this tutorial I show in many places how create single files with PDF::Reuse. That is possible, but more of an exception. I do it here to show the technique. You will anyway need it to add texts and graphics to your templates.
Graphics:
With this module you get a good possibility to program directly with the basic graphic operators of PDF. This is perhaps an advanced level, and you can avoid it if you want. On the other hand, it is not very difficult, and if you take advantage of it, your possibilities to manage text and graphics increase very much. You should look at the "PDF-reference manual" which probably is possible to download from http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/docs.html. Look especially at chapter 4 and 5, Graphics and Text, and the Operator summary.
Whenever the function prAdd() is used in this tutorial, you can probably get more explanations in the "PDF-reference manual". The code, you add to the content stream with prAdd(), has to follow the PDF syntax completely.
JavaScript:
You can add JavaScript to your PDF-file programmatically. This works with Acrobat Reader 5.0.5 or Acrobat 5.0 and higher versions.
You should have the "Acrobat JavaScript Object Specification" by hand. If you haven't got Acrobat, you can probably download it from http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/technotes/acrobatpdf.html. It is technical note # 5186. JavaScript for HTML and PDF differs so much that you need the manual, even if you know JavaScript very well.
WARNING ABOUT JAVASCRIPT: There is a complication with Acrobat but not with the Reader. Acrobat has a plug in, "webpdf.api", which converts documents fetched over the net, also PDF-documents !!! When it does its' conversions, there is a great risk that JavaScripts will be lost.
Extracting the programs from this document
Here is a snippet of code to extract the programs from this documentation.
use strict;
my ($dir, $pod);
print "From which file(pod?) shall I extract files? ";
chomp($pod = <STDIN>);
print "To what directory shall I write the files? ";
chomp($dir = <STDIN>);
if (! $dir)
{ $dir = './'; }
elsif ($dir !~ m'\/$'o)
{ $dir .= '/'; }
open (IN, "$pod") || die "Couldn't open $pod, $! aborts\n";
while (my $line = <IN>)
{ if ($line =~ m'^\=for\s+([\w\d\.\\\/]+)\s+begin'o)
{ my $srcFile = $dir . $1;
open (OUT, ">$srcFile") || die "Couldn't open $srcFile, $! aborts\n";
$line = '';
}
elsif ($line =~ m'^\=for.+end'o)
{ close OUT;
}
print OUT $line if OUT;
} Copy and paste. If you need '#!/usr/bin/perl -w' or something like that, modify the line "$line = '';". Save and run.
Under the examples directory, there are some files, which you could use when you run the programs, so it might be a good idea to extract the programs to that directory. Also unzip the files from unzipThis.zip to the same directory.
The program only works when you have prepared the pod with '=for name begin' and '=for end', and that has been done with this module, and PDF::Reuse::SimpleChart.
Ordinary tasks
I have developed PDF::Reuse in a Windows environment, so I don't use the line
#!/usr/bin/perl -wIt only produces an warning that it's too late for this switch. If you work under Unix you probably have to add that to all the examples
If you want to run a program under a web server, you can probably replace the line with prFile(..) in most examples with the lines:
prInitVars();
$| = 1;
print STDOUT "Content-Type: application/pdf \r\n\r\n";
prFile();N.B. There are no model programs in this document, just examples.
A very basic program
use PDF::Reuse; # Mandatory
prFile('ex1.pdf'); # Mandatory, with or without a file name
prText(250, 650, 'Hello World !');
prEnd(); # MandatoryThe line with prText is a directive to put a text 250 pixels to the right and 650 pixels up. If you haven't stated anything else the font will be Helvetica and 12 pixels, the page format will be 595 pixels wide and 842 pixels high. Later on you will see how to change that. There are many other default values.
If you skip the line with prText, you get an empty page. In fact that can be very useful if you want to work with JavaScript.
The last line is also necessary to write page structure and other things to the disc and to close the current file.
Page breaks
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
prDocDir('doc'); # Document directory
prFile('long.pdf');
prFont('Courier-Bold'); # Sets font
prFontSize(20); # And font size
for (my $i = 1; $i < 10001; $i++)
{ prText(250, 650, "This is page $i");
prPage(); # Page break
}
prEnd();This little program gives you a hint why I wrote the module as functional. It is slow to start, because the module is big, but then it should be fast. On my old computer it defines at least a thousand pages per second, and the capacity should be sufficient. You can easily increase the number of pages to 100 000.
Small files
This program is not as fast as the previous one. It is internally more complicated. On my PC with Windows, it also seems like the operating system needs much time to catalogue each file.
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
prDocDir('doc');
for (my $i = 1; $i < 1001; $i++)
{ prFile("short$i.pdf");
prFontSize(16);
prFont('Times-Bold');
prText(180, 650, 'This is the first and only page');
}
prEnd();Here we produce 1000 documents. When you define a new file the old one is automatically written. You have to set font and font size for each file if you are not satisfied with Helvetica 12.
Starting to reuse
Now we come to a real reason why PDF::Reuse is needed. It gives you a possibility to reuse pages from a PDF-file as a form or background. It can be used as a template.
In this example we are going to send a letter (a physical letter to be printed) to some of our customers. We imagine that the vice president will give some views about what happened last year. First he writes a letter in Word. It is converted to PDF. That is done by a plug in, PDFMaker, which you get when you buy Adobe Acrobat. (Look at next example if you want to do everything with PDF::Reuse directly. Then you get a better result. But a vice president wouldn't work like that. He would like to use a tool like Word. He knows it and it's convenient, and that's also ok.) Anyway, when PDFMaker has generated the file, you have to do a little trick. (If it is an important file, take a copy of it first.) You open the file in Acrobat. Choose the TouchUp tool for text, and remove 1 letter e.g. 1 space, then insert the same letter and save the file. By doing so, you will fool Acrobat to concatenate all streams of the page. It can then be transformed to an "XObject", which is a very practical format. PDF::Reuse can now use it as a background or template.
When you downloaded the module I hope you also got 'lastYear.pdf' which is the PDF-file that is the template for the letter. A little text file holds names and addresses. In reality these things should be taken from a database, and you could produce a file for many thousand customers.
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
my $line;
my $step = 14;
prDocDir('doc');
prFile('Letter.pdf');
prFont('Times-Roman');
prCompress(1);
my $infile = 'persons.txt';
open (INFILE, "<$infile") || die "Couldn't open $infile, $!\n aborts!\n";
while ($line = <INFILE>)
{ my ($fName, $lName, $co, $street, $zipCode, $city, $country) = split(/,/, $line);
my $y = 760;
my $x = 105;
prForm('lastYear.pdf'); # Here the template is used
prText($x, $y, "$fName $lName");
$y -= $step;
if ($co)
{ prText($x, $y, $co);
$y -= $step;
}
prText($x, $y, $street);
$y -= $step;
prText($x, $y, $zipCode);
prText(($x + 50), $y, $city);
$y -= $step;
prText($x, $y, $country);
prText(107, 660, "Dear $fName $lName");
prPage();
}
prEnd();
close INFILE;Look at the template. It is 50 kB and the file we just produced has 5 pages, using the template on every page. Yet our new file is only 43 kB. It looks a little bit confusing. PDF::Reuse only used something like 41 kB of the template. It was defined once and then the "PDF-code" referred to it, each time it was used. You can get very compact lists in this way. Try with a template of your own and several thousand customers, and you will see that this an excellent way of producing long lists in a very compact format.
If you would had needed some bars for an enveloping machine, you could had added a snippet of code just before prPage(). Here we use the graphic operators of PDF. We put the code in a string, and add it to the "content stream" of the current page. Study the PDF Reference Manual and do some experiments if you want to use it. ( I don't remember exactly the distances between the bars, but it could be something like this.)
my $string = "q\n"; # save graphic state
$string .= "4 w\n"; # make line width 4 pixels
$string .= "10 600 m\n"; # move to x=10 y=600, starts a new subpath
$string .= "40 600 l\n"; # a line to x=40 y=600 ( a horizontal line)
$string .= "10 580 m\n";
$string .= "40 580 l\n";
$string .= "10 510 m\n";
$string .= "40 510 l\n";
$string .= "s\n"; # close the path and stroke
$string .= "Q\n"; # restore graphic state
prAdd($string); # the string is added to the content streamIf you think it is too complicated to program the bars, you could have painted them in some program and added them to the word-document.(That would also have been better, because you would have had the bars defined only once in the document, and not on every page.)
A variation of previous example
Ok, if you want to avoid commercial tools like Word and Acrobat, you have to work a little bit harder, but it is possible to get a better result.
This time we produce the template also. In the distribution you received a little text file 'Lastyear.txt' and a little jpeg-image with the signature of the vice president. You also need Image::Info. (smallLetter.pl)
use PDF::Reuse;
use Image::Info qw(image_info dim); # To get the dimensions of jpeg-images
use strict;
my $textFile = 'Lastyear.txt';
my $file = 'patric.jpg'; # image with a signature
my $x = 107; # left margin
my $y = 646; # Start 646 points up
my $step = 15; # Distance between lines (fontsize = 12)
prDocDir('doc');
prFile('LetterB.pdf');
prCompress(1); # Compress the stream
prFont('Times-Roman');
open (INFILE, "<$textFile") || die "The text $textFile couldn't be opened, $!\n";
while (my $line = <INFILE>)
{ chomp $line;
if ($line eq 'Yours sincerely') # It's time to insert the image
{ my $info = image_info($file);
my ($width, $height) = dim($info); # Get the dimensions
my $intName = prJpeg("$file", # Define the image and get
$width, # an internal name
$height);
#############################################################################
# The signature image happened to become a little too big when I made it #
# So I have to scale it down for the sentence where it is shown #
#############################################################################
$width = $width * 0.6; # Scale it down
$height = $height * 0.6; # Scale it down
my $yImage = $y - 25; # Put the image lower down
$x += 50; # Indent from now on
#############################################################################
# Now we have to add something to the content stream to make the newly #
# defined image visible. This is one possibility #
#############################################################################
my $string = "q\n"; # save graphic state
$string .= "$width 0 0 $height $x $yImage cm\n"; # add numbers to the
# transformation matrix
$string .= "/$intName Do\n"; # paint the image
$string .= "Q\n"; # restore graphic state
prAdd($string); # Here we add the graphic directives
# to the content stream
}
prText($x, $y, $line); # A simple way to handle text
if ($y < 40)
{ prPage();
$y = 830;
}
else
{ $y -= $step;
}
}
close INFILE;
prEnd;This template will be smaller than 5 kB. The produced letters could also be sent by e-mail.
Usual business documents.
PDF::Reuse has enough speed to produce ordinary business documents like order forms, receipt, contracts etc. They can be displayed on practically every computer, and if you pay a little attention to it, they should be small enough, so you can send them over the net. As an extra plus, you can get a log, which can be used for archiving or verification of the documents. Usually the log should be much smaller than the formatted document. If you have big templates or images the log can be a few percent or fractions of a percent of the document. (If that is too much for you, it is possible to compress it physically or "logically" even more.)
First we design a template for the receipt. We do it in Word and the PDFMaker converts it to PDF. As usual we have to remove 1 space and put it back to concatenate the streams You should have 'receipt.pdf' in the distribution. It is 46 kB big. It can be used as it is, but to me it is a little bit too big.
Making a small template
You can skip this example, if you think 46 kB is a good size for the template for receipts.
I reuse 1 font from the previous example, and rewrite the template to get it smaller. You can use PDF::API2::Util to get a color. If you haven't got that module, you could use '0 0 0.9333' as blue2. In the distribution there is a program 'reuseComponent_pl'. Run it to see the names of included fonts:
perl reuseComponent_pl receipt.pdfand you get 'myFile.pdf'. (The program needs the module PDF, which is totally independent of PDF::Reuse. PDF sometimes croaks about 'bad object reference >' when the info-part of the PDF-file is missing. That doesn't hinder 'myFile.pdf' from being created.)
use PDF::Reuse;
use PDF::API2::Util;
use strict;
prDocDir("doc");
my @c = namecolor('blue2');
prFile("ReceiptSmall.pdf");
prCompress(1);
prForm( { file => 'Receipt.pdf', # Just to get the definitions
page => 1, # from the page, and not to
effect => 'load' } ); # add anything to the page
my $intName = prFont('FJIILK+Serpentine-Bold'); # "Extract" the font and get a
# name to use in the stream
my $string = "q\n"; # save graphic state
$string .= "BT\n"; # Begin Text
$string .= "/$intName 1 Tf\n"; # set font and "size"
$string .= "40 0 0 40 85 784 Tm\n"; # set a text matrix
$string .= "-0.05 Tc\n"; # set character spacing
# $string .= "0 Tw\n"; # set word spacing
$string .= "$c[0] $c[1] $c[2] rg\n"; # set color for filling
$string .= "(Gigantic Electric Inc.) Tj\n"; # show text
$string .= "ET\n"; # End Text
$string .= "Q\n"; # restore graphic state
prAdd($string);
prFont('TR');
prFontSize(18);
prText(153, 758, 'Everything electrical for home and office');
prText(167, 702, 'Receipt');
prFontSize(14);
prText(120, 665, 'Customer');
prText(120, 649, 'Address');
prText(120, 633, 'City');
prText(120, 617, 'Phone');
prText(335, 665, 'Seller');
prText(335, 649, 'Cashier');
prText( 78, 568, 'Item');
prText(445, 568, 'Sum');
prText(508, 568, 'Delivery');
prAdd("q 0 95 m 700 95 l S Q"); # draw a horizontal line
prFontSize(9);
prText(72, 79, 'Main Office');
prText(72, 69, 'Box 99999');
prText(72, 59, 'Stora Allén 99');
prText(72, 49, 'SE-19999 Stockholm');
prText(72, 39, 'Phone +46-8-99999999');
prText(264, 79, 'Shop (This Subsidiary)');
prText(264, 59, 'Breda Allén 99');
prText(264, 49, 'SE-15999 Skärholmen');
prText(264, 39, 'Phone +46-8-19999999');
prText(432, 79, 'VAT SE-559999-9999');
prEnd();Now your template will be 4,84 kB. If that still is too big for you, you can replace
prForm( { file => 'Receipt.pdf',
page => 1,
effect => 'load' } );
my $intName = prFont('FJIILK+Serpentine-Bold');with this sentence
my $intName = prFont('HB');Then the template will be 1,22 kB. But then you might get the wrong font for the company name, and you should adjust the text matrix so you get the text a little better centered and so on. Perhaps this text matrix would make it better:
$string .= "50 0 0 38 75 784 Tm\n";Using the template
In this example we use the template and print a receipt similar to one that I received some time ago. That one was printed with a little printer with at least 3 carbon copies and without barcodes. At the same time I received a special guarantee for one of the items. (I haven't done the guarantee certificate here). Anyway all of this could be done as PDF-files, which are easy to send over the net, and with the additions of a log and barcodes they should be easy to store, restore and handle.
In a real situation all data should be taken from an interactive program or a database. Here I have assigned everything directly in the program.
use PDF::Reuse;
use Digest::MD5;
use GD::Barcode::Code39;
use strict;
my $itemLines = 550; # start to write item lines 550 pixels up
my $pageBottom = 100;
my $str;
###############################
# Columns for the item lines
###############################
my $x0 = 41;
my $x1 = 43;
my $x2 = 337;
my $x3 = 400;
my $x4 = 470;
my $x5 = 477;
my $x6 = 506;
my $y = $itemLines;
my $step = 12; # Distance between lines (fontsize = 10)
my $pageNo;
my $form = 'ReceiptSmall.pdf';
prDocDir('doc');
prLogDir('run'); # To get a log
prFile('ex7.pdf');
prTouchUp(0); # So you can't change it by mistake
prCompress(1);
prForm($form);
my $now = localtime();
my @tvec = localtime();
my $today = sprintf("%02d", $tvec[5] % 100) . '-'
. sprintf("%02d", ++$tvec[4]) . '-'
. sprintf("%02d", $tvec[3]);
my $customer = 'Anders Svensson';
my $address = 'Klämgränd 9';
my $city = 'Stockholm';
my $phone = '9999999';
my $seller = 'Alex Buhre';
my $cashier = 'Ritva Axelsson';
my $refNo = '123456789';
my $paid = '3599.00';
my $payMethod = 'MC/EC 544819999999999999999';
my $sum;
my @items = ( [1, '22292 Microsoft Xbox Sega/Jsrf', 1, 2541, $today,
' Guarantee, ref No 345678, is attached'],
[2, '20503 Microsoft Project Gotham', 1, 55, ' ',
' To be fetched later by the customer'],
[3, '20508 TV-Spel Hårdv DVD-Adapt/Fjärr', 1, 346, $today],
[4, '21964 EA Game SIMS Unleashed', 1, 319, $today],
[5, '22249 Nordisk CD/MC/Spelfil Spiderm', 1, 239, $today],
[6, '21660 Sony Videoband 3E-24oV-ORG-EUR', 1, 99, $today]
);
pageTop();
prFont('C');
prFontSize(10);
for my $item (@items)
{ my @detail = @$item;
prText($x0, $y, "$detail[0].", 'right' );
prText($x1, $y, $detail[1] );
prText($x2, $y, $detail[2], 'right');
prText($x3, $y, sprintf("%.2f", $detail[3]), 'right');
my $itemSum = ($detail[2] * $detail[3]);
$sum += $itemSum;
prText($x4, $y, sprintf("%.2f", $itemSum ), 'right');
prText($x5, $y, 'SEK');
prText($x6, $y, $detail[4]);
if (defined $detail[5])
{ $y -= $step;
prText($x1, $y, $detail[5]);
}
$y -= $step;
if ($y < $pageBottom)
{ pageEnd();
prPage();
prForm($form);
$y = $itemLines;
}
}
my $vat = $sum * 0.25;
prText($x2 - 12, $y, '(Included VAT');
prText($x4, $y, sprintf("%.2f", $vat), 'right');
prText($x5, $y, 'SEK)');
$y -= $step;
prText($x2, $y, 'Sum to pay');
$sum = sprintf("%.2f", $sum);
prText($x4, $y, $sum, 'right');
prText($x5, $y, 'SEK');
$y -= $step;
prText($x1, $y, "Paid $payMethod");
prText($x4, $y, $paid, 'right');
prText($x5, $y, 'SEK');
pageEnd();
prEnd();
##########################################################################
# To print before the end of the page
##########################################################################
sub pageEnd
{ $y -= $step * 4;
prText($x1, $y, "Ref No $refNo");
my $oGdB = GD::Barcode::Code39->new($refNo);
my $str = $oGdB->barcode();
prFontSize(17);
prBar(200, $y, $str);
prFontSize(10);
prFont('C');
prText(($x3 + 30), $y, 'Check No Method: S1');
$y -= $step;
my $str2 = prGetLogBuffer() . '436';
prLog('<S1>');
$str = Digest::MD5::md5_hex($str2);
prText($x1, $y, "Check No $str");
}
sub pageTop
{ $pageNo++;
prFont('Times-Roman');
prFontSize(18);
prText(230, 702, "$now Page: $pageNo");
prFontSize(14);
prText(180, 665, $customer);
prText(180, 649, $address);
prText(180, 633, $city);
prText(180, 617, $phone);
prText(386, 665, $seller);
prText(386, 649, $cashier);
}When I run this program with the template of 4,84 kB the final file was 6,95 kB. In this special case the log was 2,07 kB and compressed 1,00 kB. It would have had practically the same size if you had used the template of 46 kB.
Note the sentence
prTouchUp(0);It more or less "disables" the TouchUp tool in Acrobat. It makes it difficult to change the document by mistake. Still you can save the document as postscript, distill it and change whatever you want. But now you have had to put some effort in to it, and hopefully you have not had access to my log and you should not know how the check numbers are calculated, so it would anyway be difficult to falsify. (Also the barcodes change from a font to pure graphics if you redistill the page.)
This is the way the check number is calculated
my $str2 = prGetLogBuffer() . '436';
prLog('<S1>');
$str = Digest::MD5::md5_hex($str2);
prText($x1, $y, "Check No $str");prGetLogBuffer() returns what has been logged for the current page. This could be an alternative to accumulating all variables.(The log buffer is written to the disc and undefined after every page break. Also you need to have a log. It is only activated when you have given a log directory with the function prLogDir.) The program concatenates the string from the buffer with a fixed string, '436', which someone has decided should be used in this check number method. After that, prLog puts a tag, <S1>, in the log. Now a hexadecimal digest is produced and printed. With this check number method you need the log to verify that a document is consistent. If that is good or not depends on your needs.
Importing an image
The best way to import an image, is to take it from another PDF-file:
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
prFile('doc/ex12.pdf');
prImage( { file => 'doc/letterB.pdf',
page => 1,
imageNo => 1,
x => 75,
y => 645,
size => 0.6 } );
prEnd();Use reuseComponent_pl to see which images you can take from a PDF-file.
(If you would have used 'lastYear.pdf' instead of 'letterB.pdf' in ex12_pl you would have had the image reversed when you extract it. PDFMaker defines it like that, I don't know why. Perhaps life is not supposed to be too easy. It would have been necessary to reverse the image with the transformation matrix.)
Adding a document
You can add a document with many pages to the current document with the function prDoc() like this:
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
prFile('doc/ex13.pdf');
prForm('ex1.pdf');
prText(100, 500, 'This is put on the first page');
prPage();
prDoc('doc/piped.pdf');
prForm('ex1.pdf');
prText(100, 500, 'This is put on the last page');
prEnd();The document from previous example is used for the first and last pages. In between a document, with all of its pages, is put. Graphic, and for the first prDoc or prDocForm also interactive, functions are included. As usual you loose outlines, info and metadata which I haven't implemented.
prDoc() is not sensitive to the structure of the pages. Each page can consist of many streams. But you cannot influence the layout of the included pages in any other way than through JavaScript, and you cannot write anything to the pages. Also the routine is a little bit slow, but it has a positive side-effect: If you use it with old PDF-files which have been updated many times, it only takes the current parts of the files, so the result can be trimmed down.
A business card
A PDF-page can often be used as a unit. You can resize it and display it many times on a new page. For this example I designed a little page with Mayura Draw. (When this text was written, you could download the program from http://www.mayura.com and evaluate it for 30 days.) It produces files in a variant of postscript which can be transformed to PDF by the distiller. If you want, you can also get PDF-files directly from Mayura Draw, but the files might become a little big, because it doesn't compress images.
In the code below you produce 10 cards per page of paper. You print the cards on a special paper where each card should be 89 * 51 mm. (I suppose that is close to 253.2584 * 145.126 pixels) The cards start 43 pixels from the left and 59.76 from the bottom.
Make a PDF-file with your name, photo and so on and replace 'myFile.pdf' with the name of your file. You get the best results if the proportions of your file is something like 89/51 (width/height), but that is not so important. If you haven't got a photo, you can remove the if..else sentence. Then you can let the x and y-axes be scaled independently.
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
my $y = 59.76; # Margin at the bottom
my $col1 = 43; # First column
my $col2 = 296; # Second column
my $step = 145.126; # Height of the card
prDocDir("doc");
prFile('bizCard.pdf');
my @vec = prForm ( {file => 'myFile.pdf', # Add the form definitions
effect => 'add' } # and get data about the form
);
###########################################################################
# The list from prForm contains $internalName, $lowerLeftX, $lowerLeftY,
# $upperRightX, $upperRightY, $numberOfImages
###########################################################################
my $form = $vec[0];
my $xScale = 253.2584 / ($vec[3] - $vec[1]);
my $yScale = 145.126 / ($vec[4] - $vec[2]);
if ($xScale < $yScale)
{ $yScale = $xScale;
}
else
{ $xScale = $yScale;
}
while ($y < 720)
{ prForm ( {file => 'myFile.pdf',
x => $col1,
y => $y,
xsize => $xScale,
ysize => $yScale });
prForm ( {file => 'myFile.pdf',
x => $col2,
y => $y,
xsize => $xScale,
ysize => $yScale });
$y += $step;
}
prEnd();Merging paper, bookmarks and the web
Bookmarks can help you to navigate better within a document, this is what they are mainly used for, but they are not limited to that. They can also e.g. give more information about your data and connect to links outside your document.
In this example we imagine that a company sends out printed annual statements to their customers. Now the company will also make the statements available via the web and via mail. The paper will look exactly the same, regardless of how you get it, but if it arrives electronically, the customer will have the chance of getting more information from it.
While the program assembles the PDF-document it also creates bookmarks with references and links.
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
my ($assetsThisYear, $assetsLastYear, %shares, %transactions);
prFile('report.pdf');
##################################################################
# Define two small JavaScripts functions. The first one fetches
# a document over the net. The second one shows an alert box
# with information
##################################################################
my $str = 'function get(url) { this.getURL(url, false);}'
. ' function inf(string) { app.alert(string, 3);}';
prJs($str);
# Reading a database to get shares, links to companies and
# transactions during the year
# (In a real case it would be easier to create @sharesArray and @transArray
# without any intermediate steps)
#
# If you want to test-run, remove the '#'-signs below and replace
# template.pdf with a file that can be used as a form
#
# $assetsThisYear = 300000;
# $assetsLastYear = 250000;
# %shares = ( 'ABB B' => 'http://www.abb.com',
# 'Ixzcon B' => 'http://www.ixzcon.com',
# 'Nokia B' => 'http://www.nokia.com');
#
# %transactions = ('2003-05-05-SE12345' => 'Sold 200 Alfa Laval B at 150 SEK',
# '2003-05-20-BU23456' => 'Bought 300 Ixzcon B at 99 SEK',
# '2003-05-21-SE34567' => 'Sold 45 Int.Minining at 4000 SEK',
# '2003-06-10-BU7896' => 'Bought 18000 ABB at 14 SEK',
# '2003-07-15-BU4567' => 'Bought 2000 Nokia at 200 SEK');
#
# prForm('template.pdf');
if (scalar %shares)
{ my @sharesArray;
for (keys %shares)
{ ###############################################################
# Create an array of bookmark hashes. One hash for each share.
# The text will be in blue and italic. You can fetch more
# information over the net
###############################################################
push @sharesArray, { text => "External: $_",
style => 1,
color => '0.2 0.2 0.7',
act => "get('$shares{$_}');" };
}
###################################################################
# Create a bookmark with the text 'Assets', connect it to a point
# in the document, and put the bookmarks for shares under it
###################################################################
prBookmark( { text => 'Assets',
act => '0, 350, 380',
kids => \@sharesArray } );
}
#################################################################
# Create an array of (closed) bookmarks for each transaction
# They are here only for information. (The customer should have
# received more detailed information earlier.)
#################################################################
if (scalar %transactions)
{ my @array;
for (sort (keys %transactions))
{ push @array, { text => $_,
color => '0.5 0.1 0.1',
close => 1,
act => "inf('$transactions{$_}');" };
}
prBookmark( { text => "Transactions (Unlinked)",
kids => \@array } );
}
# ...
prText(350, 400, $assetsLastYear);
prText(350, 380, $assetsThisYear);
prEnd();Hyperlinks
You want to embed links in your document. Then you can use the subroutine hyperLink from PDF::Reuse::Util, or you can use prLink for more detail control.
use PDF::Reuse;
use PDF::Reuse::Util;
use strict;
prFile('doc/hyperLink.pdf');
# ...
my ($x, $position) = prText(25, 700, "This is written before the link ");
hyperLink( $position, 700, 'Press this link',
'http://www.purelyInvented.com/info.html' );
# ...
($x, $position) = prText(25, 650, "This is written before the second link ");
my ($from, $to) = prText($position, 650, "Text for the second link");
prLink( {page => 1,
x => $position,
y => 650,
width => ($to - $from),
height => 15,
URI => 'http://www.purelyInvented.com/info.html' } );
prEnd();Simple charts
Here is a table with ordered data about prices of Nissan Maxima taken from a magazine in December 2003. First is model+year, then a column per 20000 km with the resulting medium price in Swedish crowns. The table is put in a file, 'maxima.txt'.
Maxima-02 220 210 205 undef undef undef undef
Maxima-01 200 195 190 185 undef undef undef
Maxima-00 undef 180 175 169 162 undef undef
Maxima-99 undef 110 100 95 90 85 80
Maxima-98 undef undef 90 85 80 75 70
Maxima-97 undef undef 85 80 75 70 65
Maxima-96 undef undef undef 70 65 60 55To transform the table to a simple graf, the next program can be used. If the line used for columns had concisted of alphabetic characters and whole words only, without spaces, it could also have been a line in the txt-file.
use PDF::Reuse::SimpleChart;
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
prFile('myFile.pdf');
prCompress(1);
my $s = PDF::Reuse::SimpleChart->new();
$s->columns('1000 km Usage', '20', '40', '60', '80', '100', '120', '140');
open (INFILE, 'maxima.txt') || die "Couldn't open maxima.txt, $!\n";
while (<INFILE>)
{ my @list = m'(\S+)'og;
$s->add(@list) if (scalar @list) ;
}
close INFILE;
$s->draw(x => 20,
y => 460,
width => 400,
height => 300,
yUnit => '1000 SEK',
type => 'bars');
prEnd()Look at the pod of PDF::Reuse::SimpleChart for a few more examples. The programs of that module can also be extracted the same snippet of code as you find in the beginning of this pod.
Barcodes
PDF::Reuse can print barcodes, but most often you want more than that. You want e.g. the numbers in a form humans can read, you want a white box around, perhaps you want to rotate the pattern, change the size etc. Then you can use PDF::Reuse::Barcode, which is a separate module you can download. Look at its documentation for a complete list of functions (= type of barcodes), and parameters.
use PDF::Reuse;
use PDF::Reuse::Barcode;
use strict;
prFile('doc/ex23.pdf');
#################################################################
# First a rectangle is drawn in the upper part of the page
# just to show the normal white box around the barcodes
#################################################################
my $str = "q\n"; # save the graphic state
$str .= "0.9 0.5 0.5 rg\n"; # a fill color
$str .= "10 400 440 410 re\n"; # a rectangle
$str .= "b\n"; # fill (and a little more)
$str .= "Q\n"; # restore the graphic state
prAdd($str);
#################################################
# Normal usage, but the size has been increased
#################################################
PDF::Reuse::Barcode::EAN13(x => 70,
y => 700,
value => '1234567890123',
size => 1.5);
#########################################################
# A barcode "image" rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise
#########################################################
PDF::Reuse::Barcode::NW7(x => 100,
y => 430,
value => '1234567890123',
rotate => 90);
##################
# Prolonged bars
##################
PDF::Reuse::Barcode::IATA2of5(x => 70,
y => 200,
value => '1234567890123',
prolong => 4);
prEnd();Special cases
Restoring a document from the log
If you have big templates or images in your documents, it might be more practical to store the logs instead of the formatted documents. The difference in size can be very big. In the previous example the difference was very small, but I will anyway show how to restore the document. To run this program, you have to give the name of the log from previous example as an argument. The new files are put in new directories to avoid confusion.
use PDF::Reuse;
use Digest::MD5;
use strict vars;
my $line;
my $inFile = shift || 'run/ex7.pdf.dat'; # The name of the log
prDocDir('doc2');
prLogDir('run2');
open (INFILE, "<$inFile") || die "Couldn't open file $inFile, $! \n";
while (chomp($line = <INFILE>))
{ my @elem = split /~/, $line;
my $routine = 'PDF::Reuse::pr' . (shift @elem);
for (@elem)
{ s'<tilde>'~'og;
}
if ($line eq 'Log~<S1>')
{ my $str2 = prGetLogBuffer() . '436';
my $str = Digest::MD5::md5_hex($str2);
print "$str\n";
}
&$routine (@elem);
}
close INFILE;
prEnd();If you are not interested in the check number, you can remove these lines:
if ($line eq 'Log~<S1>')
{ my $str2 = prGetLogBuffer() . '436';
my $str = Digest::MD5::md5_hex($str2);
print "$str\n";
} If you want to use the possibility to restore documents, always test a little first, to see that it works for your cases also. I have tried to avoid errors, but you never know ... (If there is a need, it would be easy to make a program that checks the restored documents and the originals, to see that there are not any differences.)
In the log there is often a line like this : 'Cid~1042639354'. It is the time stamp of the following PDF-file or JavaScript. If you try to restore a document and the source files have changed, you will have an interruption of the run, the program will die. If you know that the changes in the source file doesn't affect the final document, just remove the line 'Cid~1042639354' and try again.
Other languages than Perl
As the previous example showed, you can have batch routines to create PDF-files. You let your Cobol program, or what ever it is, create an ASCII file with instructions similar to those of the log file (skip all unusual directives like Cid, Vers, Id and Idtyp) and let some Perl program similar to ex8_pl interpret the instructions.
Also if you have an application in some other language than Perl, and that application can write ASCII characters to STDOUT, and your operating system supports pipes, I think you could let the receiving program, the end of the pipe look like this ('pipeEnd.pl'):
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict vars;
my ($line, $routine, @elem);
chomp($line = <STDIN>);
while ($line)
{ @elem = split /~/, $line;
$routine = 'PDF::Reuse::' . (shift @elem);
for (@elem)
{ s'<tilde>'~'og;
}
&$routine (@elem);
chomp($line = <STDIN>)
}And here is a Perl program that writes to STDOUT, but it could be any language. 'pipeBegin.pl':
use strict;
# Getting customer data in some way ...
my @custData = ( { firstName => 'Anders',
lastName => 'Wallberg' },
{ firstName => 'Nils',
lastName => 'Versen' },
{ firstName => 'Niclas',
lastName => 'Lindberg' },
# and 10000 more records
{ firstName => 'Sten',
lastName => 'Wernlund' } );
print "prDocDir~doc\n";
print "prFile~piped.pdf\n";
print "prFont~TR\n";
for my $customer (@custData)
{ print "prForm~lastYear.pdf\n";
print "prText~105~685~Dear $customer->{'firstName'}\n";
# ...
print "prPage\n";
}
print "prEnd\n";When I put them in a pipe like this:
C:\temp>perl pipeBegin.pl | perl pipeEnd.plI get a PDF-file with the name 'piped.pdf' in the directory doc.
You can do very many things with a simple pipe like this, but you cannot let the programs interact, then you need better interprocess communication. If you need e.g. an internal name for a "name object", then it is most easy to use only Perl and one single program.
An advantage with pipes or daemons is that you can get very good response times.
"Mixing" output from Progress with Perl code
Here is an end of a pipe that evaluates every sentence it receives, if it doesn't begin with the word 'file', in that case it evaluates the complete file ('pipeEnd2.pl'):
use strict vars;
my $logFile = shift;
my ($line, $routine, @elem, $result);
if ($logFile)
{ open (LOG, ">$logFile") || die "Couldn't open $logFile, $! \n";
}
chomp($line = <STDIN>);
while ($line)
{ if ($line =~ m'^file\s+(.+)'o)
{ my $fileName = $1;
open (INFIL, "<$fileName") || die "Couldn't open $fileName, $!\n";
my $code;
while (<INFIL>)
{ $code .= $_;
}
$result = eval ($code);
if (! $result)
{ $result = $@;
}
close INFIL;
}
else
{ $result = eval ($line);
if (! $result)
{ $result = $@;
}
}
if ($logFile)
{
print LOG "$result $line\n";
}
chomp($line = <STDIN>);
}
if ($logFile)
{ close LOG;
}If you run it from a Progress program you can "mix" Progress and Perl statements like this ('pipe.p'):
/************************************************************************/
/* This is a Progress program that runs together with the Sports2000 */
/* database, which is a demonstration database that comes with Progress */
/************************************************************************/
DEF VAR str AS CHAR NO-UNDO.
DEF VAR theFirst AS LOGI INIT "true" NO-UNDO.
OUTPUT THROUGH perl.exe C:\temp\pdf\examples\pipeEnd2.pl.
PUT UNFORMATTED "use PDF::Reuse;" SKIP.
PUT UNFORMATTED "prFile('C:/temp/pdf/examples/Sports2000.pdf');" SKIP.
FOR EACH customer:
IF theFirst THEN
theFirst = false.
ELSE
PUT UNFORMATTED "prPage();" SKIP.
PUT UNFORMATTED "prForm('C:/temp/pdf/examples/lastYear.pdf');" SKIP.
str = "prText(107, 700, '" + customer.name + "');".
PUT UNFORMATTED str SKIP.
str = "prText(107, 685, '" + customer.address + "');".
PUT UNFORMATTED str SKIP.
str = "prText(107, 670, '" + customer.city + "');".
PUT UNFORMATTED str SKIP.
END.
PUT UNFORMATTED "prEnd();"Using PDF::Reuse from JScript/VBScript
This little section is specific for Windows and is about how to make a very simple COM/ActiveX wrapper around PDF::Reuse.
You need to have PerlScript installed on your computer. Read the User Guide that comes with ActivePerl to see how that is done. You also need the Windows Scripting Host (WSH), Windows Script Components, Windows Script Component Wizard, Windows Script Runtime, VBScript, JScript, Microsoft Windows Script Control and probably also documentation. Get all of it from the download section at http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting.
To create a Windows Script Component, follow the instructions in ActivePerl User Guide - Windows Scripting - Windows Script Components - Ten Easy Steps or do like this:
Run the Wizard (when I downloaded it, I received the Scriptlet Wizard)
Enter a name
Enter a location
Click on Next
Choose run on Server
(If it is possible, choose PerlScript)
Click on Next
Click on Next (If you don't want to define a property)
Enter "act" under method name
Enter "string" as parameter name
Click on Next
Click on FinishNow you could have something that looks a little like this (The ClassID should differ):
<scriptlet>
<Registration
Description="PDFReuse"
ProgID="PDFReuse.Scriptlet"
Version="1.00"
ClassID="{6ede1a17-839b-4220-83e3-ac2ad44a45f5}"
>
</Registration>
<implements id=Automation type=Automation>
<method name=act>
<PARAMETER name=string/>
</method>
</implements>
<script language=VBScript>
function act(string)
act = "Temporary Value"
end function
</script>
</scriptlet>Now replace "VBScript" with "PerlScript" and replace the function with Perl code so it looks something like this:
<scriptlet>
<Registration
Description="PDFReuse"
ProgID="PDFReuse.Scriptlet"
Version="1.00"
ClassID="{6ede1a17-839b-4220-83e3-ac2ad44a45f5}"
>
</Registration>
<implements id=Automation type=Automation>
<method name=act>
<PARAMETER name=string/>
</method>
</implements>
<script language=PerlScript>
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict vars;
sub act
{ my $line = shift;
my ($routine, @elem);
@elem = split /~/, $line;
$routine = 'PDF::Reuse::' . (shift @elem);
for (@elem)
{ s'<tilde>'~'og;
}
my @vector = &$routine (@elem);
if (defined @vector)
{ my $outString = join('~', (@vector));
return $outString;
}
else
{ return '';
}
}
</script>
</scriptlet>Save the file and right-click on the file name from the explorer, and choose "Register" Now you should be able to run "PDF::Reuse" from VBScript, JScript and perhaps also other languages which can handle COM/ActiveX objects. You send the parameters in a ~-separated string and receive the return value in a similar way. (If you want to run programs like ex23_pl, you have to write specialized COM-objects.)
This is an example in VBScript:
' Test.vbs
' Use PDF::Reuse from VBScript
'
Dim pgm
Dim ans
Set pgm = CreateObject("PDFReuse.Scriptlet")
ans = pgm.act("prFile~fromVB.pdf")
ans = pgm.act("prForm~lastYear.pdf")
ans = pgm.act("prText~107~685~Mr Vladimir Bosak")
ans = pgm.act("prEnd")Run it from the command line with >cscript Test.vbs or double-click on it from the explorer. Here is the same example in JScript
// Test.js
// Use PDF::Reuse from JScript
//
var pgm = new ActiveXObject("PDFReuse.Scriptlet")
var ans = pgm.act("prFile~fromJS.pdf")
ans = pgm.act("prForm~lastYear.pdf")
ans = pgm.act("prText~107~685~Mr Java Script")
ans = pgm.act("prEnd")Here is an example of how to use it from the Internet Explorer. Probably it is not a very practical example ('Test.html):
<HEAD><TITLE>A Simple First Page</TITLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript">
<!--
function Button1_OnClick()
{ var pgm = PDFREUSE;
var ans = pgm.act("prFile~C:/Temp/temp/fromHTML.pdf");
ans = pgm.act("prForm~C:/Temp/temp/lastYear.pdf~1~1");
ans = pgm.act("prText~107~685~Mr JavaScript HTML");
ans = pgm.act("prEnd");
}
-->
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<OBJECT ID=PDFREUSE WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1
CLASSID='CLSID:6ede1a17-839b-4220-83e3-ac2ad44a45f5'>
</OBJECT>
<H3>A Simple First Page</H3><HR>
<FORM><INPUT NAME="Button1" TYPE="BUTTON" VALUE="Click Here"
onClick=Button1_OnClick()>
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>Change the directories (and CLASSID) so it can be run on your machine If something goes wrong and it is within the control of PDF::Reuse, you get an error log on the desktop.
The first time you run via an ActiveX object, it is fairly slow, but if you do it repeatedly, the performance is quit acceptable.
Generate OO-code
You can generate graphic objects and subroutines from simple PDF-files.
(If you want to modify the generated code you need to know a little about the graphic operators of PDF. Look at "The PDF-reference Manual".) In the distribution you should have a little program 'graphObj_pl', which I wrote just for this tutorial. It is far from foolproof, and it could be much more advanced. Anyway It could anyway be a starting point, and it has produced the graphic objects you will see here.
We will write a program that produces weather symbols on a map, and we will use graphic objects, generated from PDF-files. The best thing, is probably to run the completed program first. You should have it in the distribution with the name weatherObj_pl You also need the objects: cloud.pm, sun.pm, lightn.pm, wind.pm, thermometer.pm, drop.pm, snow.pm. Also there should be a map of eastern US: EUSA.pdf, and some weather data: weather.dat.
So run the program and look at the result. All the symbols can vary in size, color, line width, rotation and skew. Of course they can inherit attributes from each other. All the shapes are vector-based, so you can make them as big as you want and they will keep there forms. Also you should notice the PDF-file will be fairly small. If you run the program with weather.dat it will be smaller than 9 kB.
This is the way to make the symbols: You start by drawing and painting with a program that produces postscript ( or EPS or EPSF) or uncompressed PDF-files. I started with the free Pagedraw from http://www.mayura.com and that's possible. You distill your files with the distiller from Adobe or use the "free" GhostScript and Gsviewer. A disadvantage with these programs is that you get many "external references", "name objects", and you have handle them in some way. (You can do that by having the original PDF-files available. There your modules can find the appropriate color spaces, fonts, graphic state dictionaries and so on.) But it is simpler if you start with PDF-files that contain a minimum of "name objects", and that's why I made most of the symbols here with Mayura Draw. It can export simple PDF-files straight away.
When you have distilled or produced your PDF-file, you run the program graphObj_pl like this:
perl graphObj_pl myGraphicObject.pdfand you will (hopefully) get a module 'myGraphicObject.pm'. All the symbols are produced like that. At the same time as you get the module, you also get a parameter file 'myGraphicObject.dat'.
If you look at the program 'graphObj_pl', you will see that it is not very sophisticated It only takes the first stream it encounters, and tries to process it. If that is not what you wanted, it will definitely fail. Then it splits the stream into words and tries to make standardized lines with the operator at the end. (It does not handle long sentences within parenthesis correctly.) It reads the coordinates of every point to find the minimum values. It tries to analyze the stream and make it into a module. You get an entry in the objects hash for every unique color, line width and so on. "External objects" get function calls in the subroutine 'resources'.
When you use your modules in programs it is usually best to avoid external objects. If the module needs a font, you can e.g. explicitly give a standard one like 'H' or 'TR' when you draw the object. That will make your code faster to execute and the PDF-file smaller. Often you can avoid new graphic state dictionaries by letting the module use a default one. If you generated a module with 'graphObj_pl',you could write like this:
use PDF::Reuse;
use myGraphicObject;
use strict;
prFile('myFile.pdf');
my $gO = myGraphicObject->new();
$gO->draw(x => 45,
y => 100,
font => 'H',
defaultGraphState => 1);
prEnd();Anyway, if you look in the code of the modules you see that it is a little bit obscure. Perhaps I should have commented, structured and added better subroutines, but I haven't had time. It is a starting point.
One interesting case is when the "structure" of a graphic object changes. E.g. when the mercury of the thermometer goes up and down, depending on the temperature. To find out what parameters to set you could do like this:
First you draw your object -> transform it to PDF -> generate the module. Then you make the desired changes to your object -> transform it to PDF with a new name -> generate a new module and a parameter file.
In the distribution, among the examples, I have put a little experimental program, which picks out the differences between two parameter files and produces a new one, with the necessary changes to transform one object to another. E.g.: you make a PDF-file a thermometer at its lowest point low.pdf, and then one with the highest temperature, high.pdf, you should be able do the following
perl graphObj_pl low.pdf Produces low.pm and low.dat
perl graphObj_pl high.pdf Produces high.pm and high.dat
perl paramDiff_pl low.dat high.dat Produces diff.dat If you now run a little program like this:
use PDF::Reuse;
use low;
use strict;
prFile('myFile.pdf');
my $l = low->new();
$l->draw(x => 45,
y => 700,
# Insert diff.dat here
font => 'H',
defaultGraphState => 1);
prEnd();If you inserted diff.dat, you would have had "high" drawn. (But more important is perhaps that you would have seen exactly which parameters to change to vary the drawing)
If you modify 'graphObj_pl' a little, you could generate subroutines instead of packages. Then you can cut and paste to include the code in your programs. It is a little more work, but your programs will be faster if it is correctly done.
Efficient storage of text
Just as an example of how to handle text, I saved "Judges" from King James Bible as a text file. I found it at http://www.kingjamesversionofthebible.com/7-judges.html It received the name 'Judges.txt', and was 110 kB. To transform it to PDF, this little program can be used ('storage1.pl'):
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
my $textFile = 'Judges.txt'; # The name of the text file
my $pageTop = 800;
my $pageBottom = 40;
my $x = 35; # Left margin
my $y = $pageTop;
my $step = 15; # Distance between lines (fontsize = 12)
prDocDir('doc');
prFile('Judges.pdf');
prCompress(1); # Compress streams
prFont('Times-Roman');
open (INFILE, "<$textFile") ||
die "The text $textFile couldn't be opened, $!\n";
while (my $line = <INFILE>)
{ chomp $line;
prText($x, $y, $line); # A simple way to handle text
if ($y < $pageBottom)
{ prPage();
$y = $pageTop;
}
else
{ $y -= $step;
}
}
close INFILE;
prEnd;When you run this program, the result, 'Judges.pdf' will be 59 kB. It is 33 pages of text.
The function prText can be convenient, but if you want more control and perhaps also more compressed files, you can work directly with the text operators of PDF ('storage2.pl'):
use PDF::Reuse;
use strict;
my $textFile = 'Judges.txt';
my $lineNo = 0;
my $str;
prDocDir('doc');
prFile('JudgesB.pdf');
prCompress(1);
my $font = prFont('Times-Roman');
open (INFILE, "<$textFile") ||
die "The text $textFile couldn't be opened, $!\n";
while (my $line = <INFILE>)
{ if ($lineNo == 0)
{ pageTop();
}
chomp $line;
$line =~ s/\(/\\(/; # To put a backslash before (
$line =~ s/\)/\\)/; # and ) in the text
$str .= "($line)'\n"; # Here goes the text with ' as operator
$lineNo++;
if ($lineNo > 51)
{ pageBottom();
}
}
if ($lineNo > 0)
{ pageBottom();
}
close INFILE;
prEnd;
sub pageTop
{ $str .= "BT\n";
$str .= "/$font 1 Tf\n";
$str .= "12 0 0 12 35 815 Tm\n";
$str .= "1.25 TL\n";
}
sub pageBottom
{ $str .= "ET\n";
prAdd($str);
prPage();
undef $str;
$lineNo = 0;
}Remove the line prCompress(1); if you want to see how the streams are formed. Notice the lines in the subroutine pageTop.
$str .= "/$font 1 Tf\n";Here you can use the internal name for Times-Roman. Later when the page is going to be written, PDF::Reuse will examine the stream and try to connect any "name objects",(which always begin with a '/') to a resource. '1' is the font size.
Next sentence sets the text matrix (and text line matrix)
$str .= "12 0 0 12 35 815 Tm\n";The first '12' will multiply along the x-axis, the second '12' multiplies along the y-axis. '35' will "move" text objects that many pixels to the right, and '815' in a similar way upwards.
$str .= "1.25 TL\n";'TL' sets the (vertical) distance between lines. In this case it will be 1.25 * 12 = 15 pixels
Every text line which is written to the stream will have this form:
(string)'The ' is an operator that moves to the next line and shows the text string.
When you run this program the PDF-file will be 53 kB.
AUTHOR
Lars Lundberg : larslund@cpan.org
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2003 - 2005 Lars Lundberg, Solidez HB. All rights reserved. This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
DISCLAIMER
You get this tutorial free as it is, but nothing is guaranteed to work, whatever implicitly or explicitly stated in this document, and everything you do, you do at your own risk - I will not take responsibility for any damage, loss of money and/or health that may arise from the use of this document!
1 POD Error
The following errors were encountered while parsing the POD:
- Around line 460:
Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'Allén'. Assuming CP1252