I have two PDF files, one containing text (also available in RTF format) and one containing a background image. Now, I'd like to merge those two pages into one by putting the text pdf above the background pdf.
One solution I came across was to use this approach to convert the pdf files to images and draw them onto a new page. However, I wonder if this is the best solution since the PDF won't contain any text afterwards that you could copy&paste but just images.
Is there a solution to merge two pages without converting them to images first?
I'm developing a java application that extracts text from a pdf file, for this reason I use PDFBox library. I can extract most of the text from the file, but I can not extract certain words that have a larger size and a different color.
I have tried to use the method setAverageCharTolerance of pdfstripper class, but I have not had any results.
I wonder if anyone knows of any way to get extract all the text from the pdf file, whether this is large or small or different colors?
Looking for tips/tools to make this happen (using PDF/Velocity Templates/Java):
I have an image that has large dimension (4000 x 2000) and that image is obviously not viewable in a PDF. I can modify the size of the image to fit into the PDF.
But what I want to do is to view the actual size of the image in the PDF. I want to be able to scroll the image from left to right.
How can I keep the true size of the image, without destroying the set container size of the PDF?
That's not quite a basic PDF feature, but it might be implementable using some embedded scripts inside the PDF, assuming that the user has a PDF viewer capable of running scripts.
Now, a PDF is not supposed to be used as a dynamic document where you can scroll. How would that work on paper after printing? If you want scrollable documents, then you should stick to HTML. I strongly advise you not to try to do this.
If, however, you still want to go down this route, then here are a couple of suggestions:
As I said, you could do it with embedded JavaScript, but then it depends on how you're generating the PDF: FOP, iText, another PDF writer library, or just plain println concatenation, since few libraries support embedding JavaScript.
You could just make the image fit into the page, but keep its original resolution, so that you end up with a high resolution page that the user can zoom in and scroll. This way you leave the scrolling to the PDF viewer itself, you'll just have to let the user know that the image has a higher resolution and should be magnified. And frankly 4000px isn't that large, it's not even enough to keep up with today's standard printer DPIs.
I'm working on application in Java that will maintain database of song lyrics in plain text and print out some songbooks/chordbooks(that is create PDF file from selected songs). I was planing that the Java application will generate source code for pdflatex and after compiling this source user will get PDF file.
Lately I've run into a lot of problems because of latex limitation: fixed memory size (some pictures will also be drawn to PDF) - error when exceeded, no way to query end of line or and of page dynamically, it's very hard to override latex placement algorithm in a complex way,... see also some my other questions regarding latex. I come to conclusion that latex is not good option for automated PDF generation.
So I need replacement. I need to be able to typeset:
Chords over lyrics when the lyrics are in variable char width so I need to be able to measure text width
Chord diagrams that means I'll have to draw quite complex pictures
Each song on separate double page
Different fonts etc.
Thanks for all answers
Here are some PDF open source APIs
http://java-source.net/open-source/pdf-libraries
This has been asked many time, You might want to look at this post
IText is a free library which offers lots of capabilities for creating PDFs programmatically.
Rather than try to manage/calculate the complexities of the desired layout, you could try Docmosis. It will let you layout a document as a template using doc or odt formats. This means if you could make a doc or odt look like you want, you can turn it into a template and get Docmosis to render it as a PDF. Text and images can be placed inside or outside tables which makes layout fairly easy to manage.
ConTeXt is another TeX system, but it is easier to control the layout than with LaTeX. For drawing you could use PGF/TikZ or MetaPost. Support for both is available in ConTeXt. With ConTeXt's built in Lua scripting you could draw the chords automatically, assuming you have them stored in some sort of data structure.
why not just use lilypond with latex? it's meant for typesetting music.
We have some code which produces an RTF document from a RTF template. It is basically doing string search and replaces of special tags within the RTF file. This is accessible via a web page.
Typically, the processing time for this is really quick.
However, we need to embed an image within a template. We've been embedding these as JPEG images using Word's "Insert/Picture/From File..." functionality. But we've found that the resultant RTF file size is massively dependant upon the image.
For example, I've inserted a 20k JPEG logo (which is basically a solid background with some text). The RTF file increased in size from around 390k (without the image) to 510k (with the image).
Then we inserted a JPEG containing a screenshot, i.e. the image contains text, multiple colours, etc. The JPEG is around 150k. Using this image, the RTF file increased in size from 390k to 3.5MB.
So the encoding that Word uses for storing images into an RTF doesn't perform linearly. I'm guessing it is dependant upon what is in the JPEG image.
I need to keep the size of the RTF templates to a minimum to try and keep our file processing times to a minimum.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to minimize the size of the RTF files with embedded images?
Is there any way of controlling the encoding that Word uses? I can't see any options anywhere.
Does anyone know what type of binary encoding Word/RTF uses?
Thanks in advance.
Here is the best solution
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224663
Excerpt:
SYMPTOMS
When you save a Microsoft Word document that contains an EMF,
PNG, GIF, or JPEG graphic as a different file format (for example,
Word 6.0/95 (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf)), the file size of the
document may dramatically increase.
For example, a Microsoft Word 2000 document that contains a JPEG
graphic that is saved as a Word 2000 document may have a file size of
45,568 bytes (44.5KB). However, when you save this file as Word 6.0/95
(.doc) or as Rich Text Format (.rtf), the file size may grow to
1,289,728 bytes (1.22MB).
CAUSE
This functionality is by design in Microsoft Word. If an
EMF, a PNG, a GIF, or a JPEG graphic is inserted into a Word document,
when the document is saved, two copies of the graphic are saved in the
document. Graphics are saved in the applicable EMF, PNG, GIF, or JPEG
format and are also converted to WMF (Windows Metafile) format.
RESOLUTION
Warning If you use
Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may
require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot
guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry
Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
To prevent Word from saving two copies of the graphic in the document,
and to reduce the file size of the document, add the
ExportPictureWithMetafile=0 string value to the Microsoft Windows
registry.
An image in an RTF file gets stored as a WMF, uncompressed. On mac, it it would be macpict. Your best bet to keep the file size down is to link the image to the document rather than insert a copy in the document. The trade-off is that you have to keep the files together.
EDIT
Is compressing the RTF an option? Using zip/rar, you'll get your file size back, but you'll have to uncompress, first obviously. There are supposed to be tools that will do rtf compression, but I have never used them.
We have done a similar project over at work. Only we're not using that "Insert/Picture/From File..." functionality. Our template has a tag named [photos], as I presume your own does also. When we process the document we replace the tag with the RTF codes needed to display images. We're putting them within a table and we're displaying two images on each row, plus a row on top for the title.
So, you might place a tag [photos] in your template. Then you replace the tag with the RTF Codes. You can find some good references to these codes on the web. For eg. here
.
Now, my code looks something like this:
\par {\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\trowd\cellx8810 {title}\intbl\qc\cell\row}{\trowd\cellx4405\cellx8810{\pict\jpegblip\picwgoal4000\pichgoal3000\piccropl-50\piccropr-50\piccropt-50\piccropb-50\hex
Your image as an array of bytes in hexadecimal }\intbl\cell{\pict\jpegblip\picwgoal4000\pichgoal3000\piccropl-50\piccropr-50\piccropt-50\piccropb-50\hex
Your other image }\intbl\cell\row}
if you get your image into a byte array, you may use BitConverter.ToString(array) to get your hex code. only you'll need to replace dashes "-" by "";
Our files will take up less than 1/10th of the space a "normal" RTF will. If we open the doc's code with an editor such as Notepad++, we can see the RTF codes, but if we open the document and save it as RTF (changing its name), it'll go from 1.5Mb to 50Mb!!
I'm guessing DaveParillo's reply justifies it: I'm only writing each image once.
Hope it helps.
Cheers mate
Initially, keep in mind that each byte is stored using 2 characters (two bytes), this means that the increments at least is the double size of original picture.
Other things that you need is that Word and Word Pad insert different (flavor or format) of the same image plus other fields (that RTF can to be displayed without them).
Here are some scripts used to insert images in RTF (https://joseluisbz.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/script-de-clases-rtf-para-jsp-y-php/), and one example of use (https://joseluisbz.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/subiendo-imagenes-png-y-jpg-y-archivos-a-mysql-con-php-y-jsp-y-mostrarlos-en-rtf-usando-clases/)
Now, maybe you will need replace the original Image with another (http://joseluisbz.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/exploring-a-wmf-file-0x000900/).
The Swartbees answer worked perfectly for me. I first reduced the image quality to "0" using G.I.M.P. Save as jpeg functionality. After following the microsoft solution suggested by Swartbees above I reinserted the picture into the file and the size increase was negligible 229k to 279k (as opposed to 29000kb).
Thanks for your suggestions guys.
Yes, by removing the redundant characters. And to do this you must insert them back into your stream.
For instance if you have over twenty f characters in one line, then you can replace with f[20] in your stream. It is a start.
-Best of luck.