PDFinclude

Progress® Open Source

Adobe® PDF Development
Contents
 Creator  Planes – Defined
 Contributors  PDFgrid.w (2)
 Problems  Sample Code (3)
 Some Solutions  Gallery (4)
 Best Solution  Links
 PDFinclude Overview (3)
 Benefits
 Drawbacks
 Future
 Contains
 Document Elements
 Text Elements
 Graphic Elements
 External Elements
Creator
 Gordon Campbell of PRO-SYS Consultants Ltd.
 Over 13 Years of Progress Experience utilizing Progress
V6-V9, WebSpeed, Appserver,  WebClient, and
Roundtable in CHUI, GUI, Net-UI and N-Tier
environments.
 Currently resides in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
 Still consumes Alberta Beef

 www.epro-sys.com
Contributors
 Julian Lyndon-Smith of DotR (www.dotr.com)
 Peter Kiss of Paradyme N.V
 Herbert Bayer of B&R Innovative DV-Lösungen GmbH (
www.bundrinno.de)
 Steven Jellin of ELCB (www.elcb.co.za)
 Steve Southwell of Bravepoint (www.bravepoint.com)
 John Stonecipher of Indiana Packers (www.inpac.com)
 Paul Keary of Coe Press Equipment (www.cpec.com)
 plus many others … (apologies to those not listed)
Problem
 Reports and text output, in general, is boring
 Many use pre-printed forms as solution
 Expensive
 Inflexible
 One printer, one type of form
 Have to line-up text to fit in pre-printed boxes
 Miss many opportunities since you can’t print barcodes
on forms
 Barcode fonts and cartridges are printer-specific
Some Solutions
 Barcode cartridges (for printers)
 Send printer-specific Control Codes from 4GL
 Use plain text, one font only
 Create templates to be stored in printer’s
memory and called via escape codes in 4GL
Best Solution
 Create your own forms from 4GL
 Print on any printer, view on any computer
 Not a printer specific solution
 Use Barcodes at will
 Use Graphics (images and logos) anywhere
 Change font sizes, colours, orientation
 Print on plain paper
 Easily distributable content

Best Solution = PDFinclude

PDFinclude Overview (1)
 Free Product (monetary donations gladly accepted)
 Dynamically create PDF documents using predefined
Progress functions and procedures
 Available for Progress Version 9 and 10 (diluted versions
are available for V7 and v8)
 Originated from a need for distributed Reporting – HTML
couldn’t handle the complexity and not everyone uses
MS Word … but (almost) everyone has Adobe Reader®

 Download at http://pdfinclude.epro-sys.com
PDFinclude Overview (2)
PDFinclude has been deployed by companies in the following
countries:
 Canada  South Africa
 USA  Hong Kong
 Britain  Portugal
 Belgium  France
 The Netherlands  Romania
 Sweden  Hungary
 Australia  Norway
 Argentina
 Singapore  Plus many more
PDFinclude Overview (3)
PDFinclude has been deployed in the following:

 Industries  Operating Systems

 Manufacturing  Windows NT,XP,2000
 Mining  Linux
 ERP Software  HP-UX
 Retail  AIX
 Forestry  Solaris
 Healthcare  SCO
 Service  …
 ….

 Usage
 Print/E-Mail PDF from MFG/PRO  E-Mail Distribution
 Internal Report Generator  Quotations
 Outside Communication Forms  Stock Reports
 General Reporting and Storage
 Therapist Schedules
 Product Catalogues
 ….
Technical Benefits
 Free … did I say that already?
 Full Source code, documentation and samples
 Seamless integration to Progress 4GL
 Single Source for multiple platforms
 Simple to implement
 Additional feature for end users
 Can run as SUPER procedure
 Can be implemented in an AppServer
Architecture
Practical Benefits
 Eliminate pre-printed forms (cost savings)
 Make reports and print-outs more visually
appealing
 Include logos, graphics, and fonts
 Print Bar Codes
 Lower Date-Entry Error Rates
 Reduce Labour Costs
 Achieve vendor and customer full-packaging-list
acceptance
Job Benefits
 Boss can brag about cost savings
 You will be super-cool programmer
 Add another utility to your list of tools
Drawbacks
 No GUI Design Tool (but you can now import pages from
pre-existing PDF documents. So you can create your
template using MS Word then run it through Adobe
Distiller then ‘use it’ in PDFinclude)
 Depending on situation .. could be a little slow
Pentium 90 - 2+ minutes
Pentium 4 2.4Ghz – too fast to time
Future
The following offerings have been identified as outstanding issues or
nice-to-have Features. These items are listed in no particular order and will be
addressed – time permitting.

 GUI Report Designer (integrate directly within Progress

environment)
 Expand encryption offering to include 128-Bit Encryption
 Performance Improvements
PDFinclude Contains
 Set Typeface, font size, bold/italic/underline, orientation
 Predefined or Custom Page Sizes
 Graphic Elements (rectangles, circles, lines, colors etc)
 Page Header/Footer capability
 Add Bookmarks, Hyperlinks
 Ability to include images and logos (JPEG only today)
 Ability to embed True Type Fonts (including BarCoding
fonts)
 Compression (via Zlib)
 Encryption (v9.1A forward – currently only 40-Bit)
 Stream Merging Capability
 Seamlessly Handles European Numeric Format
 Some rudimentary XML handling
 Document Elements
Allows for control of the total document appearance plus allows you to
interactively determine some of the documents attribute
 Procedures  Functions
 pdf_new  pdf_page
 pdf_close  pdf_orientation
 pdf_new_page  pdf_PaperType
 pdf_set_info  pdf_PageHeader
 pdf_set_PageWidth  pdf_PageFooter
 pdf_set_PageHeight  pdf_LastProcedure
 pdf_set_PageRotate  pdf_get_info
 pdf_set_orientation  pdf_TotalPages
 pdf_set_verticalspace
 pdf_set_leftMargin
 pdf_set_TopMargin
 pdf_set_BottomMargin
 pdf_set_PaperType
 pdf_merge_stream
 pdf_bookmark
Text Elements
Allows for the positioning and formatting of textual content

 Output  Control
 pdf_text  pdf_set_font
 pdf_text_at  pdf_text_color
 pdf_text_to  pdf_text_width
 pdf_text_center  pdf_set_textRed
 pdf_text_align  pdf_set_textGreen
 pdf_text_xy  pdf_set_textBlue
 pdf_text_boxed_xy  pdf_text_render
 pdf_skip  pdf_text_rotate
 pdf_skipn  pdf_get_numfittingchars
 pdf_textY  pdf_PointSize
 pdf_textX  pdf_TextRed
 pdf_text_char  pdf_TextGreen
 Pdf_text_charxy  pdf_TextBlue
 pdf_wrap_text  pdf_rgb
 pdf_watermark
Graphic Elements
Allows for the positioning and formatting of graphical content

 Procedures  Functions
 pdf_set_fillRed  pdf_fillRed
 pdf_set_fillGreen  pdf_fillGreen
 pdf_set_fillBlue  pdf_fillBlue
 pdf_move_to  pdf_GraphicX
 pdf_rect
 pdf_GraphicY
 pdf_circle
 pdf_curve
 pdf_line
 pdf_stroke_color
 pdf_stroke_fill
 pdf_set_linejoin
 pdf_set_dash
 pdf_link
External Elements
Allows for the inclusion of external elements into the PDF document.

The External Fonts are used by Text Elements to vary the appearance of
textual content. That is, you could use an external Code39 True Type
Font to display an Invoice Number.

External Images or PDF Pages need only be defined once, but can be
used multiple times.

 Procedures  Functions
 pdf_load_font  pdf_Font
 pdf_font_diff
 pdf_FontType
 pdf_load_image
 pdf_place_image  pdf_ImageDim
 pdf_open_pdf (new)  GetXMLNodeValue (new)
 pdf_use_pdf_page (new)
 pdf_load_xml (new)
14 Predefined Fonts
 Courier (Oblique, Bold, BoldOblique)
 Helvetica (Oblique, Bold, BoldOblique)
 Times-Roman
 Times (Italic, Bold, BoldItalic)
 Symbol
 ZapfDingbats

 Plus use True Type Fonts with a little up front work. You
will need to create Adobe Font Metrics (AFM) using a
utility program (called ttfpt1.exe .. included in download).
Planes – Defined (1)
Planes are used to define how elements are added to the PDF
document. Textual Content works top-down from upper-left hand
corner while Graphic Content work bottom-up from lower left hand
corner.

0,0 80 792

Textual Content
is measured in Graphic Content
Rows and Cols. is measured in
Points.
Eg: Portrait Page
Is 80 Cols by 65 Eg: Portrait Page
Rows is 612 by 792

65 0,0 612
Planes –Defined (2)

Of course, there are always some stipulations:

 If you use pdf_text_xy or or pdf_text_align then they use the

Graphic Plane

 For Textual content, the number of columns and rows will vary
depending on the size of the font you use and whether you use a
fixed or proportional font.

So how can you effectively determine placement without a GUI

Report Designer?
PDFgrid.w (1)
This utility (included in the download) allows you to define some document
elements and will produce a Layout Grid.

 You can define Page Size and

Orientation
 Can display Text or Graphic
Grid
 For Text Grid, you can
control Font Name, Font Size,
and Margins
 For Graphic Grid, you can
control grid placements, grid
colour, and Point Size.
 You can include an external
PDF Page (new)
PDFgrid.w (2)
Upon selection of the ‘Make Grid’ button, a PDF document similar to the
following will be produced. This will aid you in the design of PDF documents.
Sample Code (1a)
This sample illustrates the standard ‘Hello World’ example. It also illustrates
the minimum statements required for generating a PDF document (see next
page for output produced)

{ pdf_inc.i}

RUN pdf_new ("Spdf","\temp\hello.pdf").

RUN pdf_new_page("Spdf").

RUN pdf_text ("Spdf", "Hello World!").

RUN pdf_close("Spdf").
Sample Code (1b)
Sample Code (2a)
This sample illustrates how to convert an existing text document to a PDF
document.
DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER p_TextFile AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER p_PDFFile AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.

DEFINE VARIABLE v_line AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.

{ pdf_inc.i}

RUN pdf_new ("Spdf",p_PDFFile).

RUN pdf_set_BottomMargin("Spdf",50).
RUN pdf_new_page("Spdf"). /* Instantiate a new page */

INPUT FROM VALUE(p_TextFile) NO-ECHO.

REPEAT:
IMPORT UNFORMATTED v_Line.

RUN pdf_text_color ("Spdf",0.0,.0,.0).

RUN pdf_text ("Spdf", v_Line).
RUN pdf_skip ("Spdf").

IF INDEX(v_Line,CHR(12)) > 0 THEN

RUN pdf_new_page("Spdf").
END.
INPUT CLOSE.
RUN pdf_close("Spdf").
Sample Code (2b)
Tools
PDFinclude currently comes with 3 tools which allow you to easily create PDF
content.
1. Table 2. Calendar

3. Matrix
 Gallery (1) Fonts Rectangles

Logo

Image

DB
Content
Gallery (2) Logo

Lines

DB
Content
 Gallery (3)

XML
Content

Matrix
Tool
Gallery (4)

Logo

Barcode
Font

Watermark
Using an External PDF Page (1)
Create form in Print through Use in
MS Word Adobe Distiller PDFinclude
to generate blank And overlay with
PDF. DB content
Using an External PDF Page (2)
•{ pdf_inc.i "THIS-PROCEDURE"}
Sample Code:
•DEFINE VARIABLE i_Counter AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.

•RUN pdf_new ("Spdf","\gord\PDFinclude\samples\super\openpdf.pdf").

•RUN pdf_set_parameter("Spdf","Compress","TRUE").

•RUN pdf_open_PDF("Spdf","c:\gord\pdfinclude\samples\support\Invoice.pdf","Inv").

•RUN DoNewPage.

•RUN DoInvoiceInfo.

•RUN pdf_close("Spdf").

•/* ------------------- INTERNAL PROCEDURES ------------------------- */

•PROCEDURE DoNewPage:
• RUN pdf_new_page("Spdf").
• RUN pdf_use_PDF_page("Spdf","Inv",1).
•END.

•PROCEDURE DoInvoiceInfo:

• RUN pdf_set_font("Spdf","Helvetica",8).
• RUN pdf_text_color("Spdf",1.0,0.0,0.0).

• /* This procedure overlays the DB info on the external PDF form */

• RUN pdf_text_xy ("Spdf",STRING(Invoice.InvoiceNum,"99999"),350,557).
• RUN pdf_text_xy ("Spdf",STRING(Invoice.InvoiceDate,"99.99.9999"),350,546).
• RUN pdf_text_xy ("Spdf",STRING(Invoice.CustNum,"99999"),350,535).

•END.
 The following were some of the questions that were asked at
the Michigan PUG held on January 21, 2004.

•What is the significance of “Spdf"?

It's totally arbitrary, but something is required to differentiate each stream. That’s right, you
can have more than one PDF stream per procedure (it’s actually unlimited … unlike Progress
streams).

•What version of Acrobat is required?

Does not require Acrobat at all, pdf-inc implements PDF format natively. You do require a PDF
viewer but these are typically free.

•How do you print pdf's on Unix platform?

Use ghostscript to convert pdf to required format. Ghostscript has a utility called pdf2ps that
converts the PDF output to Postscript which can then be printed on any Postscript printer.
Ghostscript is also a free utility (GPL) available at www.ghostscript.com.
There is a sample program called WinpdfPrint.p available at www.epro-sys.com that illustrates
how to silently print a PDF on Windows.

•How do you direct the pdf streams to different destinations such as email, fax, printer, etc?

You don't direct the streams at all, they are used to create a PDF file that can be sent via
whatever means you like.
Links
 https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdf-inc (for Download,
Sample, Documentation, Bug Reporting, Feature
Request, and Donation)
 http://www.epro-sys.com (for Creator contact)
 http://www.zlib.org (for compression library)
 http://partners.adobe.com/asn/acrobat/docs/File_Format
_Specifications/PDFReference.pdf (for Adobe PDF spec)