I'm currently writing a QuickLook plugin, and I wondering how I can display an image and some information about that image at the same time, similar to http://www.code-line.com/software/sneakpeekphoto/ .
There is only one way to do so: Convert your content to an already supported one. This means either PDF or HTML. There are two options you have:
For static information you create a simple PDF preview by rendering a view into a PDF. (Use -dataWithPDFInsideRect: method of NSView)
For dynamic information create a HTML page with links and so on. QuickLook will then show it. (I think this is also the way your example does it.)
We have not found a way to create complex previews on ur own and had to stick to one of the methods, too. Keynote and Pages do the same -- they convert their presentations to multi-page PDF previews...
Related
I'm using Apache FOP to generate a PDF through XML and XSL-FO. I have a cell in my generated PDF that I need to be able to scroll through if the content overflows it. XSL-FO has an overflow="scroll" feature, but based on my research on the topic it seems that Apache FOP does not support this option.
For example, here is a scrollable region in a PDF used by a large CAD company that I need to replicate:
Is there any way to enable this feature in Apache FOP? Is it possible to enable it in the source code (I haven't been able to find a way to do so)? Any other ways to tackle this issue?
No, it isn't possible.
From the FO perspective:
In the XSL-FO Recommendation the scroll value for the property overflow comes from the corresponding CSS2 definition, which includes this clarification:
When this value is specified and the target medium is "print", overflowing content should be printed.
As the PDF output is a print-oriented medium, I read this as a confirmation that FOP is correct in printing the overflowing content.
From the PDF perspective:
In the PDF Reference 6th edition, a search for the word "scroll" returns results referring either to the scrolling bars in the user interface or in interactive forms (text fields, list boxes, combo boxes).
There is not, or at least I could not find it, a "static text object, but with scrolling bars" feature (which is probably sensible for a print-oriented format), so FOP cannot create it in the PDF output file, not even modifying the source code.
A second look at your comment and the screenshot you included made me think it could be an example of the 3D Artwork feature of the PDF format, a feature I didn't know of before (and I still know nothing besides its name). According to the reference:
Specific views of 3D artwork can be specified, including a default view that is displayed initially and other views that can be selected. Views can have names that can be presented in a user interface.
So, I think your screenshot shows the different views associated to a 3D object; it is not a general-purpose feature that could be used to provide scrollable text.
Well, it could be possible ...
It is possible but as far as I know not with Apache FOP. Without seeing the PDF in question and guessing from the screen shot, it looks like a Flash widget inserted into the PDF. This in PDF terms is a RichMedia annotation (requires PDF version 1.7 with extensions) in which you can insert the Flash widget as well as other controlling files (like XML, other images to display, etc.) and relate them together.
AFAIK, only RenderX XEP (whom I work for) supports such RichMedia annotations inserted into PDF via XSL FO through the rx:rich-media-object extension documented here: http://www.renderx.com/reference.html#Rich Media
I believe, the only viewer that supports PDF with RichMedia annotations is Adobe Reader so it is required to view such a file. Here is a sample that includes a few interactive flash widgets, some interactive charts all within a few page PDF that was generated long ago. NOTE: I am sure some of the links in the document do not go anywhere, it was for a trade show many years ago. Remember, you would need to download this file and view in Adobe Reader and have flash player installed to see it function.
http://www.cloudformatter.com/Resources/Samples/RichMedia.pdf
You cannot use common PDF browser-based viewers like Chrome or Firefox as they do not support this type of annotation.
A screenshot of page one here shows an interactive, scrolling widget. Page 4 contains a widget similar to what you show in your example.
Page 4 scrolling widget very similar to your request:
The widget on the last page is created using a scroller SWF that takes parameters that are the images and setup/configuration files that are XML. The RenderX extension object takes these as parameters and embeds all of them in the document for the interactive flash widget so that it is totally self-contai9ned in the PDF. The XSL FO to do this is:
<rx:rich-media-object name="Sample HTML Widget" scaling="non-uniform" width="611.92pt"
height="74.99pt" content-width="scale-to-fit" src="url('rx-scroller\dockmenu.swf')"
transparency="true" activate-condition="page_visible">
<rx:flash-var name="setupXML" value="rx-dock-settings.xml"/>
<rx:flash-var name="contentXML" value="rx-dock-contents.xml"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="rx-dock-settings.xml"
src="url('rx-scroller\rx-dock-settings.xml')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="rx-dock-contents.xml"
src="url('rx-scroller\rx-dock-contents.xml')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="style.css" src="url('rx-scroller\css\style.css')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="customer1.png" src="url('rx-scroller\images\customer1.png')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="customer2.png" src="url('rx-scroller\images\customer2.png')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="customer3.png" src="url('rx-scroller\images\customer3.png')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="customer4.png" src="url('rx-scroller\images\customer4.png')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="customer5.png" src="url('rx-scroller\images\customer5.png')"/>
<rx:rich-media-resource name="customer6.png" src="url('rx-scroller\images\customer6.png')"/>
</rx:rich-media-object>
And note that many things that are in the flash would work, like links and such. It is just a pure, interactive flash inserted into PDF as the container.
Indeed it looks like this is not possible to achieve through FOP.
Continuing to dig around for a few days, however, I did find a clever post-processing alternative that is also free, essentially embedding a PDF inside of another PDF using the LaTeX animate package.
A drawback to this method is that it is not possible to embed links inside of the scrollable region, which is a major issue for me. But the method does enable inserting a scrollable region inside of an existing PDF and got me very close to what I was trying to achieve.
Im struggling with a thought here. Let's say a user has his own CMS where he can fill the content for our app. One of his options is to create a view by uploading images and typing text. Well keep it very simple and imagine he only uploads a image (320 x 20) and some text. So an image on top and some textlines below.
What would be the best way to let my app know of this layout and download the contents? I was thinking of a downloadable XML file which defines the layout but don't really know how to implement this or if its even the best way.
Oh and the content and layout must be downloadable for offline use too.
Another option what I was thinking of is showing the layout in a webview but I can't figure out how to download the mobile website for offline use.
A push in the right direction would be appreciated!
We use a custom XML and it is working good. All texts inside 'label tags' are in XHTML
remember to:
be specific when defining the xml to save some effort
write a limiting XSD! So nothing 'surprising' creeps into the xml
remember not include everything in ONE xml file as that would get rather large rather quickly. Choose a scheme for portioning the XML
I've been looking for 2 days for a solution to that problem but didn't found anything yet. I need to create a PDF File with only one page which shows its content in a table (like a timetable). I'd like to fill the cells with string values, that I am getting from a XML file.
PDFKit wasn't usefull so far and Quartz 2D appears not to be a solution because it's quit complicated to draw a table which I can change easily. Are there any librarys or so to just create a one-paged-tableshowing PDF? Thanks
The easiest approach with the greatest flexibility would probably be to generate the table as HTML, use a WebView to display it and render it to PDF using NSView's dataWithPDFInsideRect: method.
I want to convert html to pdf dynamically in objective c.
what is the best way to convert it, so that it maintains its look same as html.
Thanks in advance.
Prasad.
UIGraphicsBeginPDFContextToFile will help you to create a PDF file which shows your web content. Read through the documentation and create your own solution or just follow the tutorials I found:
Convert Html or UIWebView to pdf in iPhone or iPad
Making a PDF from a UIWebView
I have used this Haru open source library, it is quite simple and useful for creating pdfs http://libharu.org/wiki/Main_Page
Objective-C is a programming language, it doesn’t know anything about HTML or PDF per se. How to do this depends on the framework you’re using. I’m assuming here you’re using Cocoa on OS X.
There you can load your HTML into a WebView provided by WebKit and then use the NSView method dataWithPDFInsideRect: to render it as PDF. I haven’t tested this, but maybe you’ll have to add the web view to a window before you can query the PDF data.
I would like to write documentation using Jekyll with HTML and PDF outputs. Html can have a navigation but the PDF should have table of contents. Is there a free and easy way to do that?
The HTML part is easy but I would like to use #media print CSS for making the PDF file.
I have a few ideas how to do this.
Use PrinceXML, unfortunately this is commercial product with a nasty price tag ~$500
Use WKHTMLTOPDF
Use Maruku, since it is possible to do a PDF conversion using it
I would like to have multiple pages HTML and single page PDF with a TOC. Any suggestions?
Btw. Buildr has solved this problem using PrinceXML.
If 'free' is your most important criterion, than wkhtmltopdf is your best bet. It supports things like covers, toc, headers, footers and sections. Depending on how exotic the layout of your document will be, you most likely will run into some page-break issues, but with a bit of tinkering you should be fine.
I've been using wkhtmltopdf for a bit now, with some quite complicated documents (with javascript charts, tables, svg images, etc.) and have not run into too many issues.
Make sure you use the static version of wkhtmltopdf, as it is the only version which supports rendering of a TOC page.
You can use the PDFKit gem, which uses wkhtmltopdf behind the scenes. Then you can put your PDF logic in a Jekyll plugin as a generator or converter.
For generating a table of contents using Jekyll, you can use the {:toc} macro offered by markdown, or write your own textile table of contents filter if you prefer to use textile..
For generating a PDF from Html and CSS, I have found weasyprint to be a good solution. Since they do not rely upon an external engine for rendering, they do not depend upon foreign project's roadmaps for implementing relevant features such as CSS generated content or #page CSS-declarations. (But in contrast to wkhtmltopdf, weasyprint does not parse javascript).
You could also use a browser extension called Awesome Screenshot to create JPEG/PDF from a page. The extension allows you to create a full-page image or export it to PDF. With this tool, you can export all pages really quickly (and/or later combine all PDFs together to create a single document).
I am aware this is a quick & dirty solution (not perfect). E.g: while using images instead of text, the full-text search will not work. Additionally, it may require some manual work, but it does the job when you just want to read it.