Timeline for Why are open-source PDF APIs so hard to come by?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 15, 2022 at 5:21 | answer | added | Randifer | timeline score: 1 | |
| S Nov 14, 2022 at 23:17 | history | suggested | Alejandro | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Fixed typos.
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| Nov 14, 2022 at 17:36 | comment | added | jcaron | The PDF specs published by Adobe, up to 1.7 (ISO 32000-1:2008) are freely available on opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/acrobatsdk/index.html They have been available for free for a long time, and before that you could just buy the book from Addison-Wesley | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 17:14 | comment | added | MikeB | Apache do a decent package for handling PDF tasks. | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 16:42 | comment | added | ScottishTapWater | Because PDF is a deliberately obtuse file format that's nigh impossible to work with so it's just not worth the effort for open source devs | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 14:32 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Nov 14, 2022 at 23:17 | |||||
| Nov 14, 2022 at 11:21 | comment | added | Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen | @SebastianMach C++ compilers are a different breed. High quality implementations usually benefit the implementor too (either so they can sell something depending on it, or so they can actual research on top of it). GNU gcc is different because it was initially fuelled by the need of the GNU project to have a free C compiler, and by filling out the niche of a freely available compiler at the age where Unix vendors required money for theirs. That was all what we had! | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 11:14 | comment | added | Sebastian Mach | @ThorbjørnRavnAndersen: Same for C++ compilers, especially optimizing ones. Yet one gets top-performing ones for free. Actually, there exist quite some examples of complex standards, yet open source communities around them. | |
| Nov 13, 2022 at 21:04 | comment | added | mmmmmm | @Dai This is the whole concept of Unix. Produce a tool (ie executable) that does one thing and pipe text in and out of it. SO by design. | |
| Nov 13, 2022 at 15:18 | comment | added | Josh Hales | @jiwopene thanks for the thoughts, but recently haven’t been looking to solve a specific problem, it’s more just curiosity | |
| Nov 13, 2022 at 15:14 | comment | added | Josh Hales | @TooTea thanks for the tip, very helpful | |
| Nov 12, 2022 at 19:33 | comment | added | Dai |
...and this is why people give-up writing efficient software and just bundle a 100MB webkithtmltopdf.exe build in their application and people wonder why software is so slow and RAM hungry today.
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| Nov 12, 2022 at 18:06 | comment | added | Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen | Complex specification means time and effort, especially for that you do not need yourself. In other words, why didn't you just write what you need yourself? | |
| Nov 12, 2022 at 14:47 | comment | added | jiwopene | And if you just want to spit text and graphics to the page, use Cairo library. | |
| Nov 12, 2022 at 14:46 | comment | added | jiwopene | If you are seeking toolchain for producing PDFs, learn a bit about (La)TeX. You can prepare input for the LaTeX in your program and just make PDF from it. Since it is extensible and plain-text-based (but uses weird syntax), you can create nearly anything you want, including configuration of stuff like page rotation, table of contents etc. • Preparing input for LaTeX is sometimes not easy, but I use it for producing reports or printable forms etc. from a program. It is slower than direct creation, but quite easy to set up. | |
| Nov 12, 2022 at 14:30 | comment | added | TooTea | Any standard publication from the ISO costs a non-trivial amount of money, that's not in any way specific to the PDF standard. The standard workaround is to find a PDF of the last draft version immediately before standardization, because that will be free yet identical in content with the real deal. | |
| Nov 12, 2022 at 7:50 | vote | accept | Josh Hales | ||
| Nov 12, 2022 at 5:07 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Nov 11, 2022 at 22:00 | answer | added | amon | timeline score: 42 | |
| S Nov 11, 2022 at 21:07 | review | First questions | |||
| Nov 12, 2022 at 0:41 | |||||
| S Nov 11, 2022 at 21:07 | history | asked | Josh Hales | CC BY-SA 4.0 |