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PDFClown: Creating a TextMarkup leads to an inaccurate Box of the TextMarkup

Im working with PDFClown to analyze and work with PDFDocuments. My aim is to highlight all numbers within a table. For all numbers which belong together (For example: All numbers in one column of a table) I will create one TextMarkup with a List of Quads. First of all it looks like everythink work well: All highlights on the left belong to one TextMarkup and all Highlights on the right belong to another TextMarkup.
But when analyzing the size of the TextMarkup the size is bigger than it looks at the picture. So when drawing for example a rectangle arround the left TextMarkup box the rectangle intersects the other column despite no highlight of the left TextMarkup intersects the other column. Is there a way to optimize the Box of the TextMarkup? I think there is a bulbous ending of the box so that the box is intersecting the other TextMarkup
This is the code which creates the TextMarkup:
List<Quad> highlightQuads = new ArrayList<Quad>();
for (TextMarkup textMarkup : textMarkupsForOneAnnotation) {
Rectangle2D textBox = textMarkup.getBox();
Rectangle2D.Double rectangle = new Rectangle2D.Double(textBox.getX(), textBox.getY(), textBox.getWidth(), textBox.getHeight());
highlightQuads.add(Quad.get(rectangle));
}
if (highlightQuads.size() > 0) {
TextMarkup _textMarkup = new TextMarkup(pagesOfNewFile.get(lastFoundNewFilePage).getPage(), highlightQuads,"", MarkupTypeEnum.Highlight);
_textMarkup.setColor(DeviceRGBColor.get(Color.GREEN));
_textMarkup.setVisible(true);
allTextMarkUps.add(_textMarkup);
}
Here is an example file Example
Thank You !!

Your code is not really self contained (I cannot run it as it in particular misses the input data), so I could only do a bit of PDF Clown code analysis. That code analysis, though, did indeed turn up a PDF Clown implementation detail that would explain your observation.
How does PDF Clown calculate the dimensions of the markup annotation?
The markup annotation rectangle must be big enough to include all quads plus start and end decorations (rounded left and right caps on markup rectangle).
PDF Clown calculates this rectangle as follows in TextMarkup:
public void setMarkupBoxes(
List<Quad> value
)
{
PdfArray quadPointsObject = new PdfArray();
double pageHeight = getPage().getBox().getHeight();
Rectangle2D box = null;
for(Quad markupBox : value)
{
/*
NOTE: Despite the spec prescription, Point 3 and Point 4 MUST be inverted.
*/
Point2D[] markupBoxPoints = markupBox.getPoints();
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(markupBoxPoints[0].getX())); // x1.
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(pageHeight - markupBoxPoints[0].getY())); // y1.
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(markupBoxPoints[1].getX())); // x2.
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(pageHeight - markupBoxPoints[1].getY())); // y2.
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(markupBoxPoints[3].getX())); // x4.
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(pageHeight - markupBoxPoints[3].getY())); // y4.
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(markupBoxPoints[2].getX())); // x3.
quadPointsObject.add(PdfReal.get(pageHeight - markupBoxPoints[2].getY())); // y3.
if(box == null)
{box = markupBox.getBounds2D();}
else
{box.add(markupBox.getBounds2D());}
}
getBaseDataObject().put(PdfName.QuadPoints, quadPointsObject);
/*
NOTE: Box width is expanded to make room for end decorations (e.g. rounded highlight caps).
*/
double markupBoxMargin = getMarkupBoxMargin(box.getHeight());
box.setRect(box.getX() - markupBoxMargin, box.getY(), box.getWidth() + markupBoxMargin * 2, box.getHeight());
setBox(box);
refreshAppearance();
}
private static double getMarkupBoxMargin(
double boxHeight
)
{return boxHeight * .25;}
So it takes the bounding box of all the quads and adds left and right margins each as wide as a quarter of the height of this whole bounding box.
What is the result in your case?
While this added margin width is sensible if there is only a single quad, in case of your markup annotation which includes many quads on top of one another, this results in a giant, unnecessary margin.
How to improve the code?
As the added caps depend on the individual caps and not their combined bounding box, one can improve the code by using the maximum height of the individual quads instead of the height of the bounding box of all quads, e.g. like this:
Rectangle2D box = null;
double maxQuadHeight = 0;
for(Quad markupBox : value)
{
double quadHeight = markupBox.getBounds2D().getHeight();
if (quadHeight > maxQuadHeight)
maxQuadHeight = quadHeight;
...
}
...
double markupBoxMargin = getMarkupBoxMargin(maxQuadHeight);
box.setRect(box.getX() - markupBoxMargin, box.getY(), box.getWidth() + markupBoxMargin * 2, box.getHeight());
setBox(box);
If you don't want to patch PDF Clown for this, you can also execute this code (with minor adaptations) after constructing the TextMarkup _textMarkup to correct the precalculated annotation rectangle.
Is this fixing a PDF Clown error?
It is not an error as there is no need for the text markup annotation rectangle to be minimal; PDF Clown could also always use the whole crop box for each such annotation.
I would assume, though, that the author of the code wanted to calculate a somewhat minimal rectangle but only optimized for single line and so in a way did not live up to his own expectations...
Are there other problems in this code?
Yes. The text a markup annotation marks needs not be horizontal, it may be there at an angle, it could even be vertical. In such a case some margin would also be needed at the top and the bottom of the annotation rectangle, not (only) at the left and the right.

JTable setPreferredWidth() for columns displaying incorrectly

I have a JTable with an AbstractTabelModel displayed. I tried to create a void method in my project that sets the width of each column to the length of the longest value in the column. Here is the method that I am using right now, where "accountWindow" is the JTable:
public void setColumnWidths(){
accountWindow.setAutoResizeMode(JTable.AUTO_RESIZE_OFF);
for (int i = 0; i < accountWindow.getColumnCount(); i++){
int greatestStringLength = 2;
for (int z = 0; z < accountWindow.getRowCount(); z++){
if (accountWindow.getValueAt(z, i).toString().length() > greatestStringLength){
System.out.println("Width SET");
greatestStringLength = accountWindow.getValueAt(z, i).toString().length();
accountWindow.getColumnModel().getColumn(i).setPreferredWidth(greatestStringLength);
}
//System.out.println(accountWindow.getValueAt(z, i).toString());
//System.out.println("Greatest Value: " + greatestValueWidth);
}
}
}
The method is called correctly in my Controller class (MVC), but it is setting the width of each column to essentially 0. Method is called after the table is updated and the fireTableData() method is called and account information is displayed. I have added the JTable to a scroll pane. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

The width needs to be specified in pixels not characters in the String.
if (accountWindow.getValueAt(z, i).toString().length() > greatestStringLength){
Looks to me like you are just getting the number of characters in the String, not the width it takes to render the String. That is 20 characters will NOT render in 20 pixels. The width of the String will vary for different Fonts.
Check out Table Column Adjuster for the solution on how to determine the rendered width. It gives a simple usage and a custom class that you can use which has more features.
Both solutions will actually invoke the renderer used by the table to determine the maximum width.

Apache POI autosizing a percent formatted cell

I'm having some issues with autosizing cells. After my program populates and formats each accordingly, it autosizes the cells to make it look visually acceptable. The issue is, when the cell is formatted as percentage, it auto-sizes the cell without taking in consideration the fact that there's a '%' character, so we end up getting #### on the cells until you expand the cell. Is there a way to autosize it WHILE taking in consideration that extra '%' character?
EDIT:
So this is what happens, the left VAR has been autosized correctly for whatever reasons, but the VAR on the right hasn't.
EDIT2:
I noticed that this ONLY happens when the cell value is 0.00% So all the values in the column for VAR that has #### were 0s and some of the values in the left column for VAR were non-zeros.

While this may not be an ideal solution, one possibility is to grab the size of the string you are inserting into the cell (ie. "50.00%" = size of 6), and set the cell width based manually based on that.

I'm afraid this is not supported in Apache POI, as it disregards the custom cell formatting when trying to calculate column width (it only takes font characteristics and rotation into consideration, but no DataFormat).
As a workaround you can try to write your custom autoSizeColumn method as a modification of the one currently implemented, i.e.:
public void autoSizeColumn(Sheet sheet, int column, int plusMinusChars) {
double width = SheetUtil.getColumnWidth(sheet, column, false);
if (width != -1) {
width += plusMinusChars;
width *= 256;
int maxColumnWidth = 255*256; // The maximum column width for an individual cell is 255 characters
if (width > maxColumnWidth) {
width = maxColumnWidth;
}
sheet.setColumnWidth(column, (int)(width));
}
}
Then you can call it with an extra '%' character to be printed out:
//4th column autosized + 1 character in width to accomodate for '%'
autoSizeColumn(sheet, 3, 1);

How to position text relative to page using iText?

How do I set the position of text so that it is centered vertically relative to its page size? I want to position it say for example x number of points from right and centered vertically. The text of course is rotated 90 degrees.
int n = reader.getNumberOfPages();
PdfImportedPage page;
PdfCopy.PageStamp stamp;
for (int j = 0; j < n; )
{
++j;
page = writer.getImportedPage(reader, j);
stamp = writer.createPageStamp(page);
Rectangle crop = reader.getCropBox(1);
// add overlay text
Phrase phrase = new Phrase("Overlay Text");
ColumnText.showTextAligned(stamp.getOverContent(), Element.ALIGN_CENTER, phrase,
crop.getRight(72f), crop.getHeight() / 2, 90);
stamp.alterContents();
writer.addPage(page);
}
The code above gives me inconsistent position of text, and in some pages, only a portion of the "Overlay text" is visible. Please help, I don't know how to properly use mediabox and cropbox and I'm new to itext.
Thanks!

Regarding the inconsistent position: that should be fixed by adding the vertical offset:
crop.getRight(72f), crop.getBottom() + crop.getHeight() / 2
Do you see? You took the right border with a margin of 1 inch as x coordinate, but you forgot to take into account the y coordinate of the bottom of the page (it's not always 0). Normally, this should fix the positioning problem.
Regarding the fact that only a portion of the overlay text is visible: my first guess was that you're adding content under the existing content, but that guess is wrong (you're using getOverContent()). What exactly do you mean by that second question? Do yo mean the text is clipped by the CropBox? Are you looking for a way to measure the content of phrase to see if it fits the height before you add it?

Using itext for printing at absolute positions

What is the recommended way of printing a text document as a pdf using absolute positioning ?
I am having a table that I have to print. I am also having the data type lengths and starting positions of the columns.
Since the existing table was a character based, there was no problem in its positioning. But even after using a monotype font (Courier, 10) I am not able to properly position the data and last column(s) of each row erroneously skip to the next line.
In order to present my data as close as the character one, I divided the page into different columns(based on its page size) and then add the contents at the desired place. I am adding chunks of data into the paragraph.
paragraph.add(new Chunk(new VerticalPositionMark(), columnNo*ptUnit, false));
I have tried to tweak the page size, font size and margin lengths, but the data is not properly displayed. Have you encountered any such problems ? please do share your thoughts.

Have you tried ColumnText
When i want to write a paragraph and I do know the amount of lines...I do a cycle incrementing (even it says incrementing and is minus is because the pdf is from "south" to "north" (0 - height) the y in a proportion of the fontsize, something like this
//_valueArray is my string[]
//fontSize is the value of the Size of the font...
//1.5 it's just a magic number :) that give me the space line that i need
//cbLocal is the PdfContentByte of the pdf
for (i = 0; i < _valueArray.Length; i++)
{
var p = new Phrase(_valueArray[i], font);
ColumnText.ShowTextAligned(cbLocal, align, p, x, y, 0);
if (i + 1 != _valueArray.Length)
{
y = y - (fontSize*1.5f);
}
}