Table formatting. PDFlib includes a new table formatter which automatically places

rows and columns according to user preferences, and splits tables across multiple columns

or pages. Table cells can hold single- or multi-line text, images, or PDF pages, and

can be formatted according to a variety of options (e.g. border color, background, cell

ruling). The size of table rows and columns is calculated automatically subject to a variety

of user preferences.

Textflow enhancements. The Textflow engine for formatting text has been improved:

> Links and other interactive elements can automatically be created from text fragments

in a Textflow.

> Space for images can be reserved in a text column.

> The Textflow formatter supports leaders,e.g. repeated dots between an entry in a table

of contents and the corresponding page number.

> Text contents and formatting options can be supplied separately to the Textflow engine

in an arbitrary number of steps. This eliminates the need for creating a buffer

containing the full text along with inline formatting options.

> Character classes for formatting decisions can now be redefined, e.g. specify whether

the »/« character will be treated as a letter or punctuation in formatting decisions.

> Decimal tabs and leader characters are supported in single-line text (in addition to

multi-line Textflows)

> A new stamp function calculates optimized size and position for text stamps across

a rectangle.

> Improved query functions for text geometry

Font handling and Unicode. PDFlib’s font engine has been improved as follows:

> Users can query detailed properties of a loaded font, including typographic entries

in TrueType/OpenType fonts, number of available glyphs, etc.

> Font subsets can be created for Type 3 fonts.

> Unicode encoding is supported for all font types, including Type 3.

> Text can be supplied in the UTF-32 format, and surrogate pairs can be used for Unicode

values beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane (i.e. beyond U+FFFF).

> PDFlib can create artificial font styles if a bold, italic, or bold-italic variant is not

available in a font family.

> Glyph replacement can be controlled by the user, e.g. if the Ohm glyph is not available

in a font the greek letter Omega will be used instead. If this glyph still is not

available, a user-selected replacement glyph will be used. PDFlib can issue a warning

if a required glyph is not available in the font.

> In addition to numerical references, glyphs in a font can be addressed by name, e.g.

ligatures or stylistic variations.

> C- and Java-style backslash sequences are recognized in the text. This facilitates handling

of control characters or non-ASCII characters regardless of programming language

requirements and restrictions.

Improved handling of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text. PDFlib 7 lifts a number of

restrictions related to CJK text handling in earlier versions:

> PDFlib fully supports glyph metrics for all standard CMaps; e.g. Shift-JIS text can be

formatted with Textflow.

> Vertical writing mode is supported for all TrueType and OpenType fonts.

> Chinese, Japanese, and Korean codepages (e.g. code page 932 for Shift-JIS) are now

supported on all platforms (previously only available on Windows).

> CJK CMaps are now also supported for interactive features such as bookmarks (formerly

only for page content).

> Acrobat’s predefined CJK fonts can now be used with Unicode encoding.

> Font embedding is no longer forced for OpenType CID fonts loaded with one of the

predefined CMaps, resulting in smaller file size.

Matchboxes. The matchbox concept, which is supported in various text and image

functions, provides easy reference to the coordinates of formatted text or image objects.

This can be used to automatically create annotations and decoration by simple

markup (instead of doing coordinate calculations), e.g. create links in Textflow-formatted

text, add borders to individual portions of text, highlight text within a formatted

paragraph, etc.

pCOS interface integrated in PDI. PDFlib includes the pCOS 2.0 interface which can be

used to query arbitrary properties of an existing PDF document via a simple path syntax.

This can be used to list fonts, images, and color spaces; query page- or documentrelated

properties, PDF/A or PDF/X status, document info fields or XMP metadata, and

many more. Many features have been added to the set of core pCOS features as released

in the pCOS 1.0 product in 2005, e.g. image and color space properties, page labels, resources,

and others.

PDF import (PDI). PDI implements new workarounds for damaged PDF input (repair

mode). A new optimization step can remove redundant objects which may result from

importing a number of PDF documents. For example, if several imported PDF documents

contain the same sets of fonts, the redundant fonts will no longer be included in

the output document but will be removed.

PDF/A for archiving. PDFlib can generate output according to the PDF/A-1a and PDF/A-

1b standards, formally known as ISO 19005-1. PDF/A specifies a standardized subset of

PDF for long-term preservation and archiving of PDF documents. Existing PDF/A documents

can be imported and combined or split; images (any color space) can be converted

to PDF/A. While PDF/A-1b preserves the visual appearance of PDF documents, PDFlib

users can even create the advanced variant PDF/A-1a which in addition preserves the semantics

of the documents.

PDFlib Personalization Server and Block Plugin. Multiple Textflow blocks can be linked

so that one block holds the overflow text of a previous block. This allows for more flexible

layouts for variable data processing. The new pCOS interface can be used for flexible

retrieval of all kinds of block-related information from a PDF.

Interactive elements and 3D animations. Annotations (Web links) can be placed on a

specific layer so that they are visible only when the corresponding layer is visible. 3D

animations in the U3D format can be embedded in the PDF output, controlled by a variety

of options. Actions can be defined to interact with 3D animations.

AES encryption. PDFlib supports 128-bit encryption with the AES algorithm (Advanced

Encryption Standard) as supported by Acrobat 7. AES encryption is considered much

more secure than earlier crypto schemes.

Other PDF 1.6 (Acrobat 7) features. UserUnits allow better document scaling and a wider

range of possible page sizes. New document open modes are supported (e.g. attachment

pane visible) as well as setting a default print scaling for the document.

Spot colors. The set of supported Pantone spot colors has been updated to the latest

2006 editions provided by Pantone, Inc., including the new Pantone color bridge and

new colors in the metallic and pastel color libraries. Pantone color names are now integrated

in the PDFlib Block plugin, and can directly be selected in the user interface for

block properties.

Image handling. The clipping path in TIFF and JPEG images will be honored, so that

placed images automatically retain the separation of foreground and background without

any additional clipping or transparency operations.

XMP metadata. PDFlib automatically creates XMP metadata from document info

fields. Users can supply prebuilt XMP metadata streams for the document or other objects,

such as page, font, image, imported PDF page, template, or ICC profile. Custom

XMP schemas are supported to allow for client-specific metadata.

Language bindings. Various improvements in the language bindings, most notable

support for newer versions (e.g. Python 2.5) and Unicode support in the Python wrapper.

Documentation. The documentation has been rearranged into two separate main

manuals, with an associated PDFlib cookbook which presents code samples along with

explanation.