Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Preview
Many Mac OS X users prefer the fast, simple PDF viewer Preview, provided with the
operating system. It launches more quickly, and is smoother in use than Adobe Reader,
with good support for searching and extracting text. Quick launching is especially im-
portant when the PDF viewer is loaded within a web browser window as a plug-in.
Typically, Acrobat Reader is also installed for the occasions when Preview doesn't sup-
port a file (for example, a fillable form with JavaScript for a tax return).
In addition, Preview has limited (but increasing) editing capabilities, described in
“Editing with Preview on Mac OS X” on page 119
.
Xpdf
Xpdf is a small, fast, open source PDF viewer, running on virtually any Unix-like com-
puter where The X Window System is available. Support for advanced PDF facilities is
limited, but it is a highly reliable program for files within its capabilities.
Xpdf can be found at
Foo Labs' website
.
GSview
GSview is an open source PDF and PostScript viewer for Microsoft Windows and Unix.
It is based on the venerable and highly reliable GhostScript PDF and PostScript inter-
preter.
GSview and GhostScript (which is required by GSview) can be downloaded from
the
Software Libraries
Adobe provides its own expensive, commercially-licensed library for PDF manipula-
tion, based on the same code as Acrobat itself. In this section, we consider popular
open source alternatives.
In general, it's much easier to build libraries to write PDF files than to read them. To
write a file, one need only understand the small subset of PDF required for a particular
application (i.e., one compression mechanism, one font type etc.) and no complicated
parsing mechanisms. To read a file, one must implement the whole standard.
iText for Java and C#
iText is a mature open source library for reading and writing PDF documents, and for
making textual reports using high-level building blocks such as paragraphs, lists, tables,
and images. It also has support for building bookmarks, hyperlinks, annotations, and
JavaScript actions. Fillable forms can be constructed, and encrypted files are supported.
