Talk presented at the Great Indian Developer Summit 2016 in Bangalore.

1. PDF made easy with iText 7
PDF is dead! Long live PDF!
Benoit Lagae, Developer, iText Software
Bruno Lowagie, Chief Strategy Officer, iText Group

2. Is PDF dead?

3. PDF specifications

4. Everybody uses HTML
Source:
http://duff-johnson.com/2014/03/10/98-percent-of-dot-com-is-html-but-38-percent-of-dot-gov-is-pdf/

5. But governments love PDF
Source:
http://duff-johnson.com/2014/03/10/98-percent-of-dot-com-is-html-but-38-percent-of-dot-gov-is-pdf/
Percentage of PDF files:
.org: 15%
.gov: 38%
.edu: 27%

6. Publication versus …
• No need to be self-contained
• May change over time
• Not all content produced by the author
• e.g. Advertisements
• Becoming more interactive
• e.g. Comments on a news article

7. … Document
• Self-contained
• Unchanging (non-dynamic)
• Able to be authenticated
• Able to be secured/protected

8. Not counting HTML, PDF is king
Source:
http://duff-johnson.com/2015/02/12/the-8-most-popular-document-formats-on-the-web-in-2015/

9. Publication:
HTML depends on context
Document:
PDF is forever

10. PDF/E
engineering
Since 2008
ISO 24517
PDF/VT
printing
Since 2010
ISO 16612
PDF/X
graphic arts
Since 2001
ISO 15930
PDF/A
archive
Since 2005
ISO 19005
PDF/UA
accessibility
Since 2012
ISO 14289
PDF
Portable Document Format
First released by Adobe in 1993
ISO Standard since 2008
ISO 32000
Related: XFDF (ISO), EcmaScript (ISO), PRC (ISO), PAdES (ETSI), ZUGFeRD
An umbrella of standards:

11. iText 7: a PDF engine

12. Image example
Image fox = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(FOX));
Image dog = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(DOG));
Paragraph p = new Paragraph("The quick brown ").add(fox)
.add(" jumps over the lazy ").add(dog);
document.add(p);

13. On the importance of
making a document
accessible

14. Can everyone read this?

15. Some structure is helpful
title
list item
list item
list item
Label Content

16. Can everyone read this?

17. How do we read a spider chart?
RiskManagement
StructuredFinance
Mergers&acquisitions
Governance&Internal
Control
AccountingOperations
Treasuryoperations
ManagementInformation
&BusinessDecision
Support
BusinessPlanning&
Strategy
FinanceContributiontoIT
Management
CommercialActivities
Taxation
FunctionalLeadership

18. Is this a better way to read data?

19. Adapting the
‘quick brown fox’
example for PDF/UA

20. PDF/UA (part 1)
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument(new PdfWriter(dest));
Document document = new Document(pdf);
//Setting some required parameters
Pdf.setTagged();
pdf.getCatalog().setLang(new PdfString("en-US"));
pdf.getCatalog().setViewerPreferences(
new PdfViewerPreferences().setDisplayDocTitle(true));
PdfDocumentInfo info = pdf.getDocumentInfo();
info.setTitle("iText7 PDF/UA example");
//Create XMP meta data
pdf.createXmpMetadata();

21. PDF/UA (part 2)
//Fonts need to be embedded
PdfFont font = PdfFontFactory.createFont(FONT, PdfEncodings.WINANSI, true);
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.setFont(font);
p.add(new Text("The quick brown "));
Image foxImage = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(FOX));
//PDF/UA: Set alt text
foxImage.getAccessibilityProperties().setAlternateDescription("Fox");
p.add(foxImage);
p.add(" jumps over the lazy ");
Image dogImage = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(DOG));
//PDF/UA: Set alt text
dogImage.getAccessibilityProperties().setAlternateDescription("Dog");
p.add(dogImage);
document.add(p);
document.close();

22. Result

23. On the importance of
making a document
archivable

24. PDF/A
• ISO-19005
– Long-term preservation of documents
– Approved parts will never become invalid
– Individual parts define new, useful features
• Obligations and restrictions
– Metadata: ISO 16684, eXtensible Metadata Platform (XMP)
– The document must be self-contained:
• All fonts need to be embedded
• No external movie, sound or other binary files
– No JavaScript allowed
– No encryption allowed

25. Three standards
• PDF/A-1 (2005)
– based on PDF 1.4
– Level B (“basic”): visual appearance
– Level A (“accessible”): visual appearance + structural and semantic properties
(Tagged PDF)
• PDF/A-2 (2011)
– Based on ISO-32000-1
– Features introduced in PDF 1.5, 1.6, and 1.7:
• Added support for JPEG2000, Collections, object-level XMP, optional content
• Improved support for transparency, comment types and annotations, digital
signatures
– Level U (“unicode”): visual appearance + all text is in Unicode
• PDF/A-3 (2012)
– Based on PDF/A-2 with only 1 difference: attachments do not need to be PDF/A

26. Adapting the
‘quick brown fox’
example for PDF/A

27. PDF/A-1b example
PdfADocument pdf = new PdfADocument(new PdfWriter(dest),
PdfAConformanceLevel.PDF_A_1B, new PdfOutputIntent("Custom", "",
"http://www.color.org", "sRGB IEC61966-2.1", new FileInputStream(INTENT)));
Document document = new Document(pdf);
//Create XMP meta data
pdf.createXmpMetadata();
//Fonts need to be embedded
PdfFont font = PdfFontFactory.createFont(FONT, PdfEncodings.WINANSI, true);
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.setFont(font);
p.add(new Text("The quick brown "));
Image foxImage = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(FOX));
p.add(foxImage);
p.add(" jumps over the lazy ");
Image dogImage = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(DOG));
p.add(dogImage);
document.add(p);
document.close();

28. Resulting PDF/A-1b

29. PDF/A-1a example
PdfADocument pdf = new PdfADocument(new PdfWriter(dest),
PdfAConformanceLevel.PDF_A_1A, new PdfOutputIntent("Custom", "",
"http://www.color.org", "sRGB IEC61966-2.1", new FileInputStream(INTENT)));
Document document = new Document(pdf);
pdf.setTagged();
pdf.createXmpMetadata();
PdfFont font = PdfFontFactory.createFont(FONT, PdfEncodings.WINANSI, true);
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.setFont(font);
p.add(new Text("The quick brown "));
Image foxImage = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(FOX));
foxImage.getAccessibilityProperties().setAlternateDescription("Fox");
p.add(foxImage);
p.add(" jumps over the lazy ");
Image dogImage = new Image(ImageFactory.getImage(DOG));
dogImage.getAccessibilityProperties().setAlternateDescription("Dog");
p.add(dogImage);
document.add(p);
document.close();

30. Resulting PDF/A-1a

31. Real-world use:
publishing a CSV file as
PDF/A-3a and PDF/UA

32. United States database

33. United States example
part 1: initializations
PdfADocument pdf = new PdfADocument(
new PdfWriter(dest), PdfAConformanceLevel.PDF_A_3A,
new PdfOutputIntent("Custom", "", "http://www.color.org",
"sRGB IEC61966-2.1", new FileInputStream(INTENT)));
Document document = new Document(pdf, PageSize.A4.rotate());
//Setting some required parameters
pdf.setTagged(); // PDF/UA and PDF/A Level a
pdf.getCatalog().setLang(new PdfString("en-US")); // PDF/UA
pdf.getCatalog().setViewerPreferences( // PDF/UA
new PdfViewerPreferences().setDisplayDocTitle(true)); // PDF/UA
PdfDocumentInfo info = pdf.getDocumentInfo(); // PDF/UA
info.setTitle("iText7 PDF/A-3 example"); // PDF/UA
//Create XMP meta data
pdf.createXmpMetadata(); // PDF/UA and PDF/A Level a

34. United States example
part 2: add attachment
//Add attachment
PdfDictionary parameters = new PdfDictionary();
parameters.put(PdfName.ModDate, new PdfDate().getPdfObject());
PdfFileSpec fileSpec = PdfFileSpec.createEmbeddedFileSpec(
pdf, Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(DATA)), "united_states.csv",
"united_states.csv", new PdfName("text/csv"), parameters,
PdfName.Data, false);
fileSpec.put(new PdfName("AFRelationship"), new PdfName("Data"));
pdf.addFileAttachment("united_states.csv", fileSpec);
PdfArray array = new PdfArray();
array.add(fileSpec.getPdfObject().getIndirectReference());
pdf.getCatalog().put(new PdfName("AF"), array);

35. United States example
part 3: parse CSV file
PdfFont font = PdfFontFactory.createFont(FONT, true);
PdfFont bold = PdfFontFactory.createFont(BOLD_FONT, true);
// Parsing a CSV file and add data to a table
Table table = new Table(new float[]{4, 1, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1});
table.setWidthPercent(100);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(DATA));
String line = br.readLine();
process(table, line, bold, true);
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
process(table, line, font, false);
}
br.close();
document.add(table);
document.close();

36. United States example
part 4: process each line
public void process(Table table, String line,
PdfFont font, boolean isHeader) {
StringTokenizer tokenizer = new StringTokenizer(line, ";");
while (tokenizer.hasMoreTokens()) {
if (isHeader) {
table.addHeaderCell(
new Cell().add(
new Paragraph(tokenizer.nextToken()).setFont(font)));
} else {
table.addCell(
new Cell().add(
new Paragraph(tokenizer.nextToken()).setFont(font)));
}
}
}

37. United States example: result

38. United States example: result

39. Real-world use:
ZUGFeRD,
the future of invoicing

40. Invoices:
Need to be archived

41. Invoices:
Need to be accessible

42. Invoices:
Need to be machine-readable

43. Invoices:
Need to be machine-readable

44. iText 7 and its value add-ons

45. New in iText 7:
improved typography
and support for Indic
scripts

46. iText 5: missing links
Indic scripts:
•Only unsupported major script family
•Feature request #1
•Huge opportunity
•limited support in most other PDF libraries
Other features:
•Optional ligatures in Latin script
•Vowel diacritics in Arabic

47. Indic scripts: problems
•Lack of expertise
•Unicode encodes 49 Indic scripts
•Complex scripts with unique features
•Glyph repositioning: ह + ि = िह
•Glyph substitution: ம + ு = மு
•Half-characters: त + + य = त्य
•Unsolvable issues for iText 5 font engine
•No dedicated Unicode points for half-characters
•No font lookups past ‘uFFFF’
•Ligaturization is context-dependent (virama)

48. Indic scripts: solutions
Writing a new font engine
• Automatic script recognition
• Based on Unicode ranges
• Flexibility = extensibility
• Generic Shaper class
• Separate module, only called when necessary
• Glyph replacement rules
• Different per writing system
• Alternate glyphs are font-dependent

49. Indic scripts: examples
PdfFont font = PdfFontFactory.createFont(arial, PdfEncodings.IDENTITY_H, true);
String txt = "u0938u093Eu0939u093Fu0924u094Du092Fu0915u093Eu0930"; // saahityakaar
document.add(new Paragraph(txt).setFont(font));
String txt = "u0B8Eu0BB4u0BC1u0BA4u0BCDu0BA4u0BBEu0BB3u0BB0u0BCD"; // eluttaalar
document.add(new Paragraph(txt).setFont(font));

50. Other scripts: examples
PdfFont font = PdfFontFactory.createFont(arial, PdfEncodings.IDENTITY_H, true);
String txt = " u0627u0644u0643u0627u062Au0628"; // al-katibu
document.add(new Paragraph(txt).setFont(font));
String txt = "writer";
GlyphLine glyphLine = font.createGlyphLine(txt);
Shaper.applyLigaFeature(foglihtenNo07, glyphLine, null);
canvas.showText(glyphLine)

51. Status of advanced
typography in iText 7
•Indic scripts
•We already support:
•Devanagari
•Tamil
•Coming soon:
•Telugu
•Others: based on customer demand
•Arabic
•Support for vocalized Arabic (diacritics) is in development
•Latin
•Optional ligatures are fully supported