PDFBox insert images inline with TEXT - pdf

Question

I am using PDFBox for the first time to generate a PDF. I have a text document which consists of a series of about 40 multi-choice questions generated by my java program. Some of the questions have associated small images which need to be inserted above the question.
For this reason I am converting the text document to a PDF and hope to insert the images on that.
I have managed to insert an image into the PDF document but it underlay’s the text like a background.
I want to place the images in line with the text (as in word format text box, inline).
It seems the insert image classes need an absolute position which will depend on the position of the text.
How can I know where to draw my image?
for info PDFBox 2.0.7.jar
import ExamDatabase.ReadInputFile;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDDocument;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDPage;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDPageContentStream;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDFont;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDType1Font;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDFontFactory;//???look up
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDTrueTypeFont;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDType3Font;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDSimpleFont;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.graphics.image.PDImageXObject;
import org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.graphics.image.PDInlineImage;
/**
*
* #author Steve carr
*/
public class HelloWorldPdf1_1_1
{
//runs
/**
* #param args the command line arguments
* #throws java.io.IOException
*/
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
{
ReadInputFile fileI = new ReadInputFile();// read plain text file text file
ArrayList<String> localList = fileI.readerNew();
// Create a document and add a page to it
try (PDDocument document = new PDDocument())
{
PDPage page = new PDPage();
document.addPage(page);
// Create a new font1 object selecting one of the PDF base fonts
PDFont font1 = PDType1Font.HELVETICA;//TIMES_ROMAN;
PDFont font2 = PDType1Font.TIMES_ROMAN;
PDFont font3 = PDType1Font.COURIER_BOLD;
try (PDPageContentStream contentStream = new PDPageContentStream(document, page))
{
//Creating PDImageXObject object
PDImageXObject pdImage = PDImageXObject.createFromFile("C:/PdfBox_Examples/CARD00.GIF", document);
//**creating the PDPageContentStream object
//PDPageContentStream contents = new PDPageContentStream(document, page);
//**Drawing the image in the PDF document
contentStream.drawImage(pdImage, 100, 500, 50, 70);//1ST number is horizontal posn from left
//****TEXTTEXTTEXTTEXT
// Define a text content stream using the selected font1, moving the cursor and drawing the text "Hello World"
contentStream.beginText();
contentStream.setFont(font1, 11);
contentStream.newLineAtOffset(0, 0);
contentStream.setCharacterSpacing(0);
contentStream.setWordSpacing(0);
contentStream.setLeading(0);
contentStream.setLeading(14.5f);// this was key for some reason
contentStream.moveTextPositionByAmount(100, 700);// sets the start point of text
System.out.println("localList.size= " + localList.size());//just checking within bounds during testing
String line;
int i;
for (i = 0; i < 138; ++i)
{
System.out.println(localList.get(i));
line = localList.get(i);
contentStream.drawString(line);
contentStream.newLine();
}
contentStream.endText();
//******************************************************
// Make sure that the content stream is closed:
contentStream.close();
}
// Save the results and ensure that the document is properly closed:
document.save("Hello World.pdf");
}
}
}
result output with text written on top of image:

Answer 1

As per this pdf box fix: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PDFBOX-738, transparency is preserved only when rgba is set.so if transparency is preserved it will look as inline with the other text rather than an overlay, so this could be a solution for your first part of the problem ie the overlay issue.
And this example helps you find how to compute the width occupied by a specific text and thus to calculate where to place the image next after the text:
https://svn.apache.org/viewvc/pdfbox/trunk/examples/src/main/java/org/apache/pdfbox/examples/interactive/form/DetermineTextFitsField.java?revision=1749360&view=markup