Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[David V Glasgow via use-livecode]

Mark,

This post is hereby awarded the ‘exposition clarity badge’.  You should sew it 
onto your sleeve (with all the others), and wear with pride.

I never felt I understood the problem, let alone possible solutions, and now I 
think I do both.  

A really interesting read, thank you.

Cheers,

David Glasgow


> On 8 Mar 2017, at 11:59 am, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hi Dr Hawkins,
> 
> I've been away on holiday for just over a week, and this thread has got
> quite long, so I thought it easier to answer the original post rather
> than some off shoot on it.
> 
> On 2017-03-03 00:13, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:
>> I just got off the phone with the court clerk in Reno, and received the
>> beginning of the end . . .I figured it would come from some state or anther
>> in a year or two, but they are requiring me to use the *exact* pdf as
>> propagated by the court.
> 
> Having read the entire thread, my understanding of your problem is as follows
> (please correct if I am wrong):
> 
> 
> 
> You have PDF forms which are downloadable from a government department. They
> are intended for filling printing and then filling in - i.e. they do not use
> editable PDF forms (FPDF?).
> 
> The government department for whatever reason requires that the forms are used
> exactly as is with the user filling in the relevant spaces within them and 
> then
> submitting.
> 
> There is some claim by said department that 'at some point' they will get
> scanners which will be able to tell whether the original forms were used or 
> not
> thus you are not allowed to recreate the non-user parts of the form.
> 
> 
> 
> Reading between the lines the latter requirements of the department are not
> unreasonable - I suspect they would like to automate their processes as much
> as possible and as such would like to be able to have a computer via OCR or
> whatever suck out the appropriate parts of forms at some point to remove a
> human from the equation.
> 
> Given that there is an obvious 'printing' element involved in this at present
> pixel-perfection is not exactly what they are looking for (unless they are
> imagining they live in a world where all printers are capable of absolutely
> perfect registration - some skew / offset is always going to be present) just
> that whatever software they might use in the future to automate can locate
> the user written parts to suck out - therefore it is reasonable for them to
> require that the non-user sections are relatively laid out and look precisely
> the same as if you printed the original PDF.
> 
> I'll run on these above assumptions for now.
> 
> 
> 
> First of all let me just point out that EPS is definitely *not* what you want.
> 
> EPS is just a PostScript program with appropriate comments describing an
> (optional) pre-rendered thumbnail, and other print related metadata so it
> can be embedded in another document. Rendering EPS properly requires a full
> PostScript interpreter - many programs which 'support EPS' actually only 
> support
> rendering the thumbnail and then only printing on a PostScript printer.
> 
> Indeed, there is a good reason why no non-GPL full open-source PostScript
> interpreter exists (as far as I'm aware at least) - they are complex pieces
> of software which have a high degree of commercial value.
> 
> Whilst Linux and Mac users might be used to transparent PostScript support 
> this
> is only because GhostScript is installed as an innate part of the printing 
> tool
> chain on those platforms - thus this is an innate part of the 'system' and as
> such you can write non-GPL applications which use it as you don't need to 
> distribute
> it with your app. On all other platforms, however, you are looking at having 
> to
> distribute a PS interpreter with your app - and at that point you are hit by 
> the
> GPL (in particular, in your case, it would classify as an 'innate' requirement
> of your application and non-optional and thus virality would kick in).
> 
> So, if you want a PostScript interpreter in your app you are going to have to
> pay $ to license such a thing. (Including such a thing in LiveCode would
> require license fees or development costs way above what most people would 
> want
> to pay for a feature they would probably rarely if ever use and as such it is
> unreasonable to expect LiveCode to support such things cross-platform as part 
> of
> the standard license fee - event at the Business license level).
> 
> One of the main reasons that Adobe created PDF was to avoid needing a 
> PostScript
> interpreter to accurately create 'archival' type quality representations of 
> printable
> documents and to provide a much easier way to edit / amend and modify such 
> documents.
> As PDF is just a data structure the latter can be done with processing a 
> generated
> PDF. As EPS/PS are actually a program all bets are off for editing - the 
> program
> does what it is written to, 

Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

On 2017-03-08 14:51, Roger Eller via use-livecode wrote:
So... Why not convert the forms to high-res (300+ dpi) PNG or JPEG as 
Mark
suggests as one of the many options, and overlay LiveCode fields to 
create
an app for filling the form?  Once filled in, merge the high-res image 
with
the collected field data into a fresh new PDF generated via the Quartum 
PDF

Library (using 100% LiveCode scripting).

http://users.telenet.be/quartam/pdf4rev/benefits.html



This sounds like a good balance. I should perhaps point out (after my 
previous
slightly 'gloomy' post) that generating PDF files by hand for specific 
cases

is not that hard as they are mostly text files (in their simplest form).

In Dr Hawkins case, it sounds like images + overlaid text is sufficient 
and as
long as the text is ASCII then Quartam PDF's abilities should be more 
than up

to the task.

[ The reason I mention ASCII text here is that one of the hardest parts 
of
generating PDF (and PostScript, to be fair) is actually text rendering. 
As
they are both display/print oriented output formats they require text to 
be
fully processed into positioned glyphs taken from subsets of embedded 
fonts.
If however you stick to ASCII, or the slightly larger standard Adobe 
encodings
with the default PostScript fonts then most of the complexity falls 
away. ]


The hard part about PDF support (at both sides) is generality - which is 
what
you need if you have no control over what PDFs are coming in, or what 
might

need to be printed to PDF.

Warmest Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps

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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Monte Goulding via use-livecode]

> On 8 Mar 2017, at 10:59 pm, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> - Option 1 - bi-level background images
> 
> Here I'm assuming that your original PDFs do not change that often and (given 
> the
> requirements you have found out from the government department involved) the 
> forms
> must be used as is. Thus, I presume any 'recurring sections' would need to be
> rendered on repeated images of the appropriate page rather than cutting up the
> original forms into pieces and just replicating those parts.
> 
> In this case, then pre-rendering all the pages as high-resolution 
> black-and-white
> 1bpp bitmaps and then rendering those underneath the LiveCode fields is 
> probably not
> that bad an option. Given that the average printer people will be using will 
> probably
> only have a true black-and-white resolution of 300-600dpi and most printed 
> forms are
> only about 5% black pixels you will get immensely high compression ratios. 
> The only
> slight snafu here right now is that PDF printing support in LC does not yet 
> exist
> for Android, and would need a small patch to pass PNG data straight through 
> to the
> PDF (at present it only does this for JPEG). [ The reason PDF printing is not 
> currently
> supported on Android is due to text rendering which is not a straightforward 
> thing in
> PDF nor PostScript; the reason only JPEG image data is currently supported is 
> that
> when the pass-through was implemented the library we use to do PDF printing - 
> cairo -
> only supported it for JPEG, I *think* it does support certain PNG formats now 
> though
> since we updated the library for other reasons a while back ].

If the required platforms are limited to Mac and Windows then you can use XPDF 
to generate the images ;-)

Cheers

Monte
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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Roger Eller via use-livecode]

So... Why not convert the forms to high-res (300+ dpi) PNG or JPEG as Mark
suggests as one of the many options, and overlay LiveCode fields to create
an app for filling the form?  Once filled in, merge the high-res image with
the collected field data into a fresh new PDF generated via the Quartum PDF
Library (using 100% LiveCode scripting).

http://users.telenet.be/quartam/pdf4rev/benefits.html

~Roger

//SUMMARIZED//

On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 6:59 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Hi Dr Hawkins,
>
> I've been away on holiday for just over a week, and this thread has got
> quite long, so I thought it easier to answer the original post rather
> than some off shoot on it.
>
> 
>
> So what options are there?
>
> - Option 1 - bi-level background images
>
> - Option 2 - augment the original PDF
>
> - Option 3 - wait until LiveCode can render PDFs directly as an object on
> a card
>
> - Option 4 - focus on Mac/iOS and do other platforms later
>
> Warmest Regards,
>
> Mark.
>
> --
> Mark Waddingham ~ m...@livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
> LiveCode: Everyone can create apps


 //SUMMARIZED//
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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Mark Waddingham via use-livecode]

Hi Dr Hawkins,

I've been away on holiday for just over a week, and this thread has got
quite long, so I thought it easier to answer the original post rather
than some off shoot on it.

On 2017-03-03 00:13, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:

I just got off the phone with the court clerk in Reno, and received the
beginning of the end . . .I figured it would come from some state or 
anther

in a year or two, but they are requiring me to use the *exact* pdf as
propagated by the court.


Having read the entire thread, my understanding of your problem is as 
follows

(please correct if I am wrong):



You have PDF forms which are downloadable from a government department. 
They
are intended for filling printing and then filling in - i.e. they do not 
use

editable PDF forms (FPDF?).

The government department for whatever reason requires that the forms 
are used
exactly as is with the user filling in the relevant spaces within them 
and then

submitting.

There is some claim by said department that 'at some point' they will 
get
scanners which will be able to tell whether the original forms were used 
or not

thus you are not allowed to recreate the non-user parts of the form.



Reading between the lines the latter requirements of the department are 
not
unreasonable - I suspect they would like to automate their processes as 
much
as possible and as such would like to be able to have a computer via OCR 
or
whatever suck out the appropriate parts of forms at some point to remove 
a

human from the equation.

Given that there is an obvious 'printing' element involved in this at 
present
pixel-perfection is not exactly what they are looking for (unless they 
are
imagining they live in a world where all printers are capable of 
absolutely
perfect registration - some skew / offset is always going to be present) 
just
that whatever software they might use in the future to automate can 
locate
the user written parts to suck out - therefore it is reasonable for them 
to
require that the non-user sections are relatively laid out and look 
precisely

the same as if you printed the original PDF.

I'll run on these above assumptions for now.



First of all let me just point out that EPS is definitely *not* what you 
want.


EPS is just a PostScript program with appropriate comments describing an
(optional) pre-rendered thumbnail, and other print related metadata so 
it
can be embedded in another document. Rendering EPS properly requires a 
full
PostScript interpreter - many programs which 'support EPS' actually only 
support

rendering the thumbnail and then only printing on a PostScript printer.

Indeed, there is a good reason why no non-GPL full open-source 
PostScript
interpreter exists (as far as I'm aware at least) - they are complex 
pieces

of software which have a high degree of commercial value.

Whilst Linux and Mac users might be used to transparent PostScript 
support this
is only because GhostScript is installed as an innate part of the 
printing tool
chain on those platforms - thus this is an innate part of the 'system' 
and as
such you can write non-GPL applications which use it as you don't need 
to distribute
it with your app. On all other platforms, however, you are looking at 
having to
distribute a PS interpreter with your app - and at that point you are 
hit by the
GPL (in particular, in your case, it would classify as an 'innate' 
requirement

of your application and non-optional and thus virality would kick in).

So, if you want a PostScript interpreter in your app you are going to 
have to
pay $ to license such a thing. (Including such a thing in LiveCode 
would
require license fees or development costs way above what most people 
would want
to pay for a feature they would probably rarely if ever use and as such 
it is
unreasonable to expect LiveCode to support such things cross-platform as 
part of

the standard license fee - event at the Business license level).

One of the main reasons that Adobe created PDF was to avoid needing a 
PostScript
interpreter to accurately create 'archival' type quality representations 
of printable
documents and to provide a much easier way to edit / amend and modify 
such documents.
As PDF is just a data structure the latter can be done with processing a 
generated
PDF. As EPS/PS are actually a program all bets are off for editing - the 
program
does what it is written to, and you can write it in any way you want. If 
you want to

'edit' it, you need to edit the program.

However

PDF is also a large complicated format whose reading, writing and 
rasterisation

has huge commercial value.

Up until Google bought and open-sourced *part* of FoxIT so they could 
include a
full and complete cross-platform PDF renderer in Chrome (in the form of 
PDFium)
there was no non-GPL open-source full and complete PDF renderer 
available in

the open-source world that I know of.

As far as I'm aware all such open-source libraries for PDF rasterisation 
and

Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

I can tell you that FDF files work on virtually every PDF viewer/editor for any 
platform. But the PDF has to be set up to "read" the FDF file when it opens, 
otherwise you need to create a button that asks for the file (using javascript) 
and then populates from whatever file the user selects. 

Originally, this was the ONLY way my app worked, before I started using 
Applescript and Javascript to fill under OS X. Also it should be noted that an 
FDF created on another platform is considered "untrusted" by Windows, and you 
have to give the OS permission to proceed, otherwise the auto-fill feature will 
not work. 

Bob S


> On Mar 5, 2017, at 12:33 , Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> Using the free command line utility PDFTK,
> I could fill a pdf with interactive fields using
> just a text file formatted as a fdf document
> (that you could generate with LiveCode).
> Tested and works in Windows and Ubuntu Linux.
> Could you test if this works on MacOSX?
> 
> pdftk.exe C:\PDFwithForms.pdf fill_form C:\data.fdf output FilledPDF.pdf
> flatten
> 
> There are many samples of PDF and matching FDF files inside
> these compressed folders from Adobe:
> http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/fdftoolkit.html
> 
> Al


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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Andre Garzia via use-livecode]

Hi,

If your objective is just displaying a PDF then you can use a RevBrowser
window to do that, and even use PDF.js if you want:

  https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/

This would allow you to display the files as they are but won't help you
change or create new files.

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 8:13 PM, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> I just got off the phone with the court clerk in Reno, and received the
> beginning of the end . . .I figured it would come from some state or anther
> in a year or two, but they are requiring me to use the *exact* pdf as
> propagated by the court.
>
> As livecode is not capable of rendering a pdf page or an eps, this means I
> am going to have to code pdf merging externally, while also working with
> .png or .jpg background images in livecode to place onto blank pages.
>
> With the need to maintain both of these, I'll be doing most of the work for
> on the parallel program--which may need to be fundamentally different in
> mac/linux, windows, iOS, and android--at which point, it will make sense to
> move as much as possible to the new platform.
>
> *sigh*
>
> It's 2017; asking to be able to display an eps and keep it as part of the
> pdf generated doesn't seem like it's asking much.
>
> .png/.jpg simply aren't acceptable solutions for my output, as the density
> required will produce insanely large .pdf files.
>
> --
> Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
> (702) 508-8462
> ___
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> subscription preferences:
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>



-- 
http://www.andregarzia.com -- All We Do Is Code.
http://fon.nu -- minimalist url shortening service.
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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Andre Garzia  wrote:

> If your objective is just displaying a PDF then you can use a RevBrowser
> window to do that, and even use PDF.js if you want:
>

The intent is to display the pdf file that is about to be created, so that
the user can modify it.  Also, to generate that file.



-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode]

Using the free command line utility PDFTK,
I could fill a pdf with interactive fields using
just a text file formatted as a fdf document
(that you could generate with LiveCode).
Tested and works in Windows and Ubuntu Linux.
Could you test if this works on MacOSX?

pdftk.exe C:\PDFwithForms.pdf fill_form C:\data.fdf output FilledPDF.pdf
flatten

There are many samples of PDF and matching FDF files inside
these compressed folders from Adobe:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/fdftoolkit.html

Al
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 2:05 AM, Lagi Pittas via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> If You HAVE tom use the ACTUAL government PDF and be pixel perfect then how
> can you be printing anything of any type out as a pdf
> whether with eps or any changed fields - maybe I haen't read all the posts
> but am I missing something?
>

Overlaying the output fields on top of the eps.  When viewed/printed, it
looks like the original has been typed upon.


>
> Can you explain in 1 place without assuming anything in the least amount of
> words what the workflow is what you want to input what you want to get out
> and where does the eps fit into this - if you are suppose to use THE
> mandated pdf.
>

I break it into pieces, rather than using the whole page, as parts repeat.

I've tossed together a video showing this at
dochawkbk.com/eps_example.720.mov.

I suppose a widget that could display an eps would do on-screen (but then
again, for on-screen a 72dpi image will do), but that wouldn't solve the
print to pdf issue (but as I mentioned elsewhere, I think that only takes
one line of code.


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Paul Dupuis via use-livecode]

On 3/4/2017 3:10 PM, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 8:10 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
>> What is this XPDF viewer you speak of? Not showing up in the LC dictionary.
>
> a unix pdf display program.
>
>

XPDF is not a "unix pdf display program" - it is a LiveCode supported
external (like the revZip or revXML libraries) for opening, display, and
extracting content from PDFs. It can extract text or image content, all
or just portions, and a lot more. It is for LiveCode Business License
holders, so it is not available for the open source or Indy editions.

It does not write PDFs - you have LiveCode's built in print to PDF for
that. It just reads, displays, and extract content from PDFs. It is
supported on Windows and OSX. It is available in LC 8 and 9



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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 8:10 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> What is this XPDF viewer you speak of? Not showing up in the LC dictionary.


a unix pdf display program.


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 8:07 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> err... are the forms already created? Or are you trying to create the
> forms from scratch programaticaly? If the former, I wrote an application
> that does just that. I first create a fillable form, then (for OS other
> than OS X) I create an FDF file using a simple one liner Javascript command
> and then add an Open File action that imports data from that fdf file.
> Otherwise (for OS X using Acrobat) I use Applescript to tell Javascript to
> fill the form.
>


I've considered such an approach, but
1)  It shouldn't be that much work,
2)  it takes something external
3)  it takes different approaches on different platforms
4)  it means that I'm counting on something *after* my customer modifies
the supposed output to create the actual output.
5) Some of what I need to do generates the forms on the fly, with the same
block repeated with different information.  In some cases, I have a block
such as the entries on the second page at
http://www.uscourts.gov/file/18734/download .  The same page could repeat
thirty times or more with 3-10 entries per page, with each "block" on each
page linking to a separate SQL entry.




-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Paul Dupuis via use-livecode]

On 3/3/2017 11:10 PM, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode wrote:
> What is this XPDF viewer you speak of? Not showing up in the LC dictionary. 
>
> Bob S


Available only with Business License and for a while it was missing from
the Dictionary, but you can find it in LC 8.1.3 or the latest 9.0 dp
builds. Just type XPDF into the search box for the Livecode script
dictionary. It is an external for accessing PDFs.


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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Lagi Pittas via use-livecode]

Maybe I'm being dense here but

If You HAVE tom use the ACTUAL government PDF and be pixel perfect then how
can you be printing anything of any type out as a pdf
whether with eps or any changed fields - maybe I haen't read all the posts
but am I missing something?

Can you explain in 1 place without assuming anything in the least amount of
words what the workflow is what you want to input what you want to get out
and where does the eps fit into this - if you are suppose to use THE
mandated pdf.

I really want to understand the problem - other than government
bureaucracy/incomptence/stupidity - take your pick

Regards Lagi

Regards lagi

On 3 March 2017 at 22:20, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 1:29 PM, Paul Dupuis via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
> > So the XPDF viewer lets you grab the text from PDFs, the formattedRect
> > of any selected Text, and the page (or ant portion of the rendered page)
> > as an Image in addition to just viewing a PDF
> >
>
> I have *absolutely* no use for the text, unless I'm completely replacing
> the pdf with fields.
>
> I don't need a reproduction of the PDF in livecode; I already have tools
> for that.  I need the pdf itself.
>
> AFAIK, it is impossible to take text from a pdf of unknown creation source
> (or possibly pieced together by different editors) and maintain the exact
> spacing.  Just for openers, I find font sizes that were apparently, say,
> 6.2, or line heights of 12.2, or that it three lines were generated with
> the Mxyzptlk font that some employee happened to have on his computer and
> he thought would be nice for that part.
>
> A clerk or secretary printing the government version and my version on
> acetate sheets to see if they line up to the pixel is an actual concern I
> have to face (yes, there are folks with that much time on their hands).  In
> the early 90s, I dropped this project (then in SuperCard 1.5) when the
> clerk at the time told me that we would have to be exact *to the pixel* of
> the new scanners they had coming in (which, to this date, have not
> happened).
>
>
> > I assume the issue that you view EPS as high resolution for the purposes
> > of printing the PDF form back out with your layered fields filled in.
> >
> > You can grad what ever resolution of a PDF page you want with XPDF. You
> > set the scaling to say 400% and then get the page image and scale the
> > image to 25% and you have a image at normal size but at 4x screen
> > resolution. Want more resolution, set the PDF scale to 800% and fetch
> > the page image. Have a super high resolution printer - keep scaling!
> >
>
> Except that I have a fairly tight size limits on uploaded files, and
> arbitrarily large files will trample that fast on a 100 page pdf.
>
>
> >
> > It seems to me XPDF is capable of doing everything you need to do.
> >
> > If the forms have labels for the fields, such as:
> >
> > Name: [space on the pdf to type or write a name]
> >
> > Nope; don't need that at all.
>
> My software generates rules on how the contents of each field depends on
> others.  I need to be laying my own fields in software, with the names I
> give them (you don't think the government would remain all that consistent
> between documents, do you? :)  besides, they don't define most of the names
> I need anyway).
>
> What I need is to be able to use an eps or a pdf as a display object, and
> to export a pdf with that object.
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
> (702) 508-8462
> ___
> use-livecode mailing list
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your
> subscription preferences:
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

What is this XPDF viewer you speak of? Not showing up in the LC dictionary. 

Bob S


> On Mar 3, 2017, at 13:29 , Paul Dupuis via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> So the XPDF viewer lets you grab the text from PDFs, the formattedRect
> of any selected Text, and the page (or ant portion of the rendered page)
> as an Image in addition to just viewing a PDF


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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

err... are the forms already created? Or are you trying to create the forms 
from scratch programaticaly? If the former, I wrote an application that does 
just that. I first create a fillable form, then (for OS other than OS X) I 
create an FDF file using a simple one liner Javascript command and then add an 
Open File action that imports data from that fdf file. Otherwise (for OS X 
using Acrobat) I use Applescript to tell Javascript to fill the form. 

The app is capable of importing any fillable PDF form, and then creating links 
between the fillable form controls, and SQL database table.columns. It can even 
use Livecode Expressions to fill the forms. Once the associations are made, I 
save the binary of the PDF form and the associations (as an array) in my SQL 
database. To recreate a form, I simply write the binary of the blank form out 
to any file system, then run a script to populate it. I use it every day to 
fill out service invoices, install forms, site surveys etc. 

If however you are trying to create a PDF from scratch, I have great compassion 
for you. When researching if I would be able to write this app, I determined 
that if I had to go that route, I would not even begin. I think that elephant 
is much too big to eat. Even one byte at a time. 

Contact me off list if you want to do a remote session so you can see what I am 
talking about. 

Bob S


> On Mar 3, 2017, at 11:26 , Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> Well, yes, but the whole point of this is for me to be able to ship a
> program that generates filled forms (bankruptcy petitions, schedules, etc.).


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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

Do you mean you want to take 2 or more PDF's and combine them? That is what 
merging PDF's means I think. If this is the issue, I think we had a thread 
about this a while back where virtually any PDF editing app is capable of this. 
In addition, with OS X you can select multiple PDF's and open them at once and 
it will combine them in Acrobat or Reader. Only Acrobat will be able to save as 
though, given security requirements are met. 

I don't think Livecode will make a good PDF Authoring Application tool if that 
is what you are shooting for. 

Bob S

> On Mar 2, 2017, at 15:13 , Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> As livecode is not capable of rendering a pdf page or an eps, this means I
> am going to have to code pdf merging externally, while also working with
> .png or .jpg background images in livecode to place onto blank pages.


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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Bob Sneidar via use-livecode]

Bite your tongue@ It's full blown Unix we are told!! ;-)

Bob S


> On Mar 2, 2017, at 15:24 , J. Landman Gay via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> Mac is sorta/kinda Linux. I wonder if something could be done about that.
> 
> -- 
> Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com


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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 1:29 PM, Paul Dupuis via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> So the XPDF viewer lets you grab the text from PDFs, the formattedRect
> of any selected Text, and the page (or ant portion of the rendered page)
> as an Image in addition to just viewing a PDF
>

I have *absolutely* no use for the text, unless I'm completely replacing
the pdf with fields.

I don't need a reproduction of the PDF in livecode; I already have tools
for that.  I need the pdf itself.

AFAIK, it is impossible to take text from a pdf of unknown creation source
(or possibly pieced together by different editors) and maintain the exact
spacing.  Just for openers, I find font sizes that were apparently, say,
6.2, or line heights of 12.2, or that it three lines were generated with
the Mxyzptlk font that some employee happened to have on his computer and
he thought would be nice for that part.

A clerk or secretary printing the government version and my version on
acetate sheets to see if they line up to the pixel is an actual concern I
have to face (yes, there are folks with that much time on their hands).  In
the early 90s, I dropped this project (then in SuperCard 1.5) when the
clerk at the time told me that we would have to be exact *to the pixel* of
the new scanners they had coming in (which, to this date, have not
happened).


> I assume the issue that you view EPS as high resolution for the purposes
> of printing the PDF form back out with your layered fields filled in.
>
> You can grad what ever resolution of a PDF page you want with XPDF. You
> set the scaling to say 400% and then get the page image and scale the
> image to 25% and you have a image at normal size but at 4x screen
> resolution. Want more resolution, set the PDF scale to 800% and fetch
> the page image. Have a super high resolution printer - keep scaling!
>

Except that I have a fairly tight size limits on uploaded files, and
arbitrarily large files will trample that fast on a 100 page pdf.


>
> It seems to me XPDF is capable of doing everything you need to do.
>
> If the forms have labels for the fields, such as:
>
> Name: [space on the pdf to type or write a name]
>
> Nope; don't need that at all.

My software generates rules on how the contents of each field depends on
others.  I need to be laying my own fields in software, with the names I
give them (you don't think the government would remain all that consistent
between documents, do you? :)  besides, they don't define most of the names
I need anyway).

What I need is to be able to use an eps or a pdf as a display object, and
to export a pdf with that object.



-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 12:44 PM, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> What's wrong with an SVG image?
>
> I suppose those work too.



-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Paul Dupuis via use-livecode]

So the XPDF viewer lets you grab the text from PDFs, the formattedRect
of any selected Text, and the page (or ant portion of the rendered page)
as an Image in addition to just viewing a PDF

I assume the issue that you view EPS as high resolution for the purposes
of printing the PDF form back out with your layered fields filled in.

You can grad what ever resolution of a PDF page you want with XPDF. You
set the scaling to say 400% and then get the page image and scale the
image to 25% and you have a image at normal size but at 4x screen
resolution. Want more resolution, set the PDF scale to 800% and fetch
the page image. Have a super high resolution printer - keep scaling!

It seems to me XPDF is capable of doing everything you need to do.

If the forms have labels for the fields, such as:

Name: [space on the pdf to type or write a name]

You can just enter a list of the text of the labels, search the PDF text
for the keywords/phases, get the formatedRect, and autocreate a
transparent field for the data offset to the right of the 
coordinate of the formatted rect.


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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

What's wrong with an SVG image?

Richmond.

On 3/3/17 9:27 pm, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 9:59 AM, Dr. Hawkins  wrote:


As for on screen display, an eps should be far simpler than the containers
for video and so forth.


Also, an eps is/should be the preferred format for a business's logo, for
the same scaling reasons.




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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 9:59 AM, Dr. Hawkins  wrote:

>
> As for on screen display, an eps should be far simpler than the containers
> for video and so forth.
>

Also, an eps is/should be the preferred format for a business's logo, for
the same scaling reasons.


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> What I absolutely need is to be able to use an eps (or an arbitrarily sized
>> png) as an inserted image in the same way as a jpg, gif, or png.
>>
>
> GIMP can be used to do all of this.
>

Well, yes, but the whole point of this is for me to be able to ship a
program that generates filled forms (bankruptcy petitions, schedules, etc.).

Shipping a program to techno-illiterate customers that relies on livecode
calling gimp . . .

And I don't so much want to enter the data into the pdf documents as
expected by the documents, but put my own data on top of the existing pdf,
whether the author thought data belonged there or not . . .




-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

On 3/3/17 7:59 pm, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 8:55 AM, Heather Laine via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:


Its likely I'm being dense here... but does the PDF viewer not meet your
needs?


No; it really isn't even in the same range.

What I absolutely need is to be able to use an eps (or an arbitrarily sized
png) as an inserted image in the same way as a jpg, gif, or png.


GIMP can be used to do all of this.

Richmond.



There might be one on a page, or there might be a few, and they would
display for the user on a regular card, with regular functionality of the
other objects on my card.

Then, when done, the page region of that card prints out as a pdf, the eps
and everything on top of it (as a practical matter, all are fields) print
out to my output pdf just like any other card.

The output part is easy.  While my Forth and PostScript are to rusty to
remember the right verbs, it would be something like:

put "begin image" & cr & file:"the_eps_to_include.eps" & cr & "end image" &
cr after thePDFoutputSoFar


As for on screen display, an eps should be far simpler than the containers
for video and so forth.







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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

I think Dr Hawkins wants to enter data into the PDF documents rather 
than either view them

or extract data from them.

Richmond.

On 3/3/17 6:55 pm, Heather Laine via use-livecode wrote:

Its likely I'm being dense here... but does the PDF viewer not meet your needs?

https://livecode.com/products/livecode-platform/pdf-viewer/ 


Regards,

Heather

Heather Laine
Customer Services Manager
LiveCode Ltd
www.livecode.com


On 3 Mar 2017, at 15:24, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode 
 wrote:

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 5:02 PM, Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:


I have used LiveCode (then MetaCard) to write content
in PDF templates, so I do not understand the requirement
that file should have no changes.


The file I upload needs to be indistinguishable from the pdf the court
issues to fill in at any arbitrary density.

At the moment, I'm simply recreating by pasting into fields.  What *should* be
happening is placing fields over an eps made from the court's own pdf.

This particular form was the breaking point:
http://www.nvb.uscourts.gov/downloads/mmm/forms/NVB105-3_OrderDebtorsMtnReferraltoMMM.pdf

I have created paragraph by paragraph, but I now have a clerk insisting
that it be this exact pdf--so I have to go back to my original plan.  With
livecode, this *should* happen by turning it into page by page eps's,
putting each on a card, and laying fields over them, and then "printing" to
a pdf file.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of eps support, the only possible way is to
make png's, put the fields in front of those, delete the png when printing,
and then use shell tools (pdftk, pdfjar, pdftools, etc.)  to overlay each
page of my livecode output onto the form pdf.

This is fairly straightforward on unix (mac, linux).  However, I need to
insure that the third party software is installed, and for good measure,
support at least two ways of doing it.

Windows?  beats me.

iOS?  I'd be shocked if the tools are there.  I'd have to license the code.

android?  beats me again.

But all in all, I've lost "write once".


--
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

By the way . . .

I have to send various PDF forms to my sons in the USA and Germany with 
my signature on the original PDF.


I open the PDF in GIMP, add a layer to the relevant page, and overlay a 
PNG of my signature
(I signed my name using my Wacom tablet into GIMP and extracted the pen 
colours from the
white background to make a PNG image of my signature surrounded by 
transparency), then export the

page as a PDF.

My sons then print out the PDFs with my signature on them where they are.

Of course this has nothing whatsoever to do with LiveCode.

Richmond.


On 3/3/17 5:24 pm, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 5:02 PM, Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:


I have used LiveCode (then MetaCard) to write content
in PDF templates, so I do not understand the requirement
that file should have no changes.


The file I upload needs to be indistinguishable from the pdf the court
issues to fill in at any arbitrary density.

At the moment, I'm simply recreating by pasting into fields.  What *should* be
happening is placing fields over an eps made from the court's own pdf.

This particular form was the breaking point:
http://www.nvb.uscourts.gov/downloads/mmm/forms/NVB105-3_OrderDebtorsMtnReferraltoMMM.pdf

I have created paragraph by paragraph, but I now have a clerk insisting
that it be this exact pdf--so I have to go back to my original plan.  With
livecode, this *should* happen by turning it into page by page eps's,
putting each on a card, and laying fields over them, and then "printing" to
a pdf file.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of eps support, the only possible way is to
make png's, put the fields in front of those, delete the png when printing,
and then use shell tools (pdftk, pdfjar, pdftools, etc.)  to overlay each
page of my livecode output onto the form pdf.

This is fairly straightforward on unix (mac, linux).  However, I need to
insure that the third party software is installed, and for good measure,
support at least two ways of doing it.

Windows?  beats me.

iOS?  I'd be shocked if the tools are there.  I'd have to license the code.

android?  beats me again.

But all in all, I've lost "write once".




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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 8:55 AM, Heather Laine via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Its likely I'm being dense here... but does the PDF viewer not meet your
> needs?
>

No; it really isn't even in the same range.

What I absolutely need is to be able to use an eps (or an arbitrarily sized
png) as an inserted image in the same way as a jpg, gif, or png.

There might be one on a page, or there might be a few, and they would
display for the user on a regular card, with regular functionality of the
other objects on my card.

Then, when done, the page region of that card prints out as a pdf, the eps
and everything on top of it (as a practical matter, all are fields) print
out to my output pdf just like any other card.

The output part is easy.  While my Forth and PostScript are to rusty to
remember the right verbs, it would be something like:

put "begin image" & cr & file:"the_eps_to_include.eps" & cr & "end image" &
cr after thePDFoutputSoFar


As for on screen display, an eps should be far simpler than the containers
for video and so forth.




-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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RE: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Ralph DiMola via use-livecode]

I use Acrobat API and the JSO in VB to edit "original" PDFs. One can add
fields, add pull down lists w/java, edit existing fields, execute java in
the PDF, extract/change text, add/delete bookmarks and everything else you
can do(and more) in the Acrobat GUI.

On my to-do list is creating a LC external to gain LC access to Acrobat API
and the JSO in LC. The Acrobat structures are heavily typed so I don't know
how practical/possible this interface would be. It might require some LCB
glue? I don't know if the Acrobat API and JSO is available on platforms
other than Windows. If I had a LC Acrobat API/JSO external I would lose VB
fast.
 

Ralph DiMola
IT Director
Evergreen Information Services
rdim...@evergreeninfo.net

-Original Message-
From: use-livecode [mailto:use-livecode-boun...@lists.runrev.com] On Behalf
Of Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2017 10:25 AM
To: How to use LiveCode
Cc: Dr. Hawkins; Alejandro Tejada
Subject: Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 5:02 PM, Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> I have used LiveCode (then MetaCard) to write content in PDF 
> templates, so I do not understand the requirement that file should 
> have no changes.
>

The file I upload needs to be indistinguishable from the pdf the court
issues to fill in at any arbitrary density.

At the moment, I'm simply recreating by pasting into fields.  What *should*
be happening is placing fields over an eps made from the court's own pdf.

This particular form was the breaking point:
http://www.nvb.uscourts.gov/downloads/mmm/forms/NVB105-3_OrderDebtorsMtnRefe
rraltoMMM.pdf

I have created paragraph by paragraph, but I now have a clerk insisting that
it be this exact pdf--so I have to go back to my original plan.  With
livecode, this *should* happen by turning it into page by page eps's,
putting each on a card, and laying fields over them, and then "printing" to
a pdf file.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of eps support, the only possible way is to
make png's, put the fields in front of those, delete the png when printing,
and then use shell tools (pdftk, pdfjar, pdftools, etc.)  to overlay each
page of my livecode output onto the form pdf.

This is fairly straightforward on unix (mac, linux).  However, I need to
insure that the third party software is installed, and for good measure,
support at least two ways of doing it.

Windows?  beats me.

iOS?  I'd be shocked if the tools are there.  I'd have to license the code.

android?  beats me again.

But all in all, I've lost "write once".


--
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: ouch: the beginning of the end

[Heather Laine via use-livecode]

Its likely I'm being dense here... but does the PDF viewer not meet your needs?

https://livecode.com/products/livecode-platform/pdf-viewer/ 


Regards,

Heather

Heather Laine
Customer Services Manager
LiveCode Ltd
www.livecode.com

> On 3 Mar 2017, at 15:24, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode 
>  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 5:02 PM, Alejandro Tejada via use-livecode <
> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
>> I have used LiveCode (then MetaCard) to write content
>> in PDF templates, so I do not understand the requirement
>> that file should have no changes.
>> 
> 
> The file I upload needs to be indistinguishable from the pdf the court
> issues to fill in at any arbitrary density.
> 
> At the moment, I'm simply recreating by pasting into fields.  What *should* be
> happening is placing fields over an eps made from the court's own pdf.
> 
> This particular form was the breaking point:
> http://www.nvb.uscourts.gov/downloads/mmm/forms/NVB105-3_OrderDebtorsMtnReferraltoMMM.pdf
> 
> I have created paragraph by paragraph, but I now have a clerk insisting
> that it be this exact pdf--so I have to go back to my original plan.  With
> livecode, this *should* happen by turning it into page by page eps's,
> putting each on a card, and laying fields over them, and then "printing" to
> a pdf file.
> 
> Unfortunately, due to the lack of eps support, the only possible way is to
> make png's, put the fields in front of those, delete the png when printing,
> and then use shell tools (pdftk, pdfjar, pdftools, etc.)  to overlay each
> page of my livecode output onto the form pdf.
> 
> This is fairly straightforward on unix (mac, linux).  However, I need to
> insure that the third party software is installed, and for good measure,
> support at least two ways of doing it.
> 
> Windows?  beats me.
> 
> iOS?  I'd be shocked if the tools are there.  I'd have to license the code.
> 
> android?  beats me again.
> 
> But all in all, I've lost "write once".
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
> (702) 508-8462
> ___
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> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription 
> preferences:
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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 1:27 AM, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> I have just tried to import an EPS file in LC 9.0.0 DP-5 on Linux
> and couldn't find any menu that would let me do that.
>

Didn't that depend upon the linux in question supporting display
postscript, anyway?


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode]

I'm not sure whether it does that any more.

I have just tried to import an EPS file in LC 9.0.0 DP-5 on Linux
and couldn't find any menu that would let me do that.

Richmond.

On 3/3/17 1:24 am, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode wrote:

On 3/2/17 5:13 PM, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:
It's 2017; asking to be able to display an eps and keep it as part of 
the

pdf generated doesn't seem like it's asking much.


I don't know much about EPS or how it relates to PDF. But on Linux, LC 
supports EPS objects. Mac is sorta/kinda Linux. I wonder if something 
could be done about that.




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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode]

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 3:24 PM, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> I don't know much about EPS or how it relates to PDF. But on Linux, LC
> supports EPS objects. Mac is sorta/kinda Linux. I wonder if something could
> be done about that.
>


At thepdf export level (building code for the variant of Forth that styles
itself "postscript"), it should  be pretty much identical. (in fact, it
should *be* identical for *everything* save for any variation in line
termination used in the filename of the external [if it be external] eps).

Displaying at screen res can't possibly be all that hard; it's a one-time
render that would only change if the pixelDensity (?) was changed (I
actually do that to scale output windows to readable size).

I used to use .eps as background images when I did this in openoffice ten
years ago . . . (the only feature I can name offhand that openCalc can has
that excel doesn't.  Oh, and the openWriter display editor--years ago, I
found my students were doing their stat homework in with openWriter
because, unlike Word, it's equation editor is useful)




-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462
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Re: "ouch: the beginning of the end"

[J. Landman Gay via use-livecode]

On 3/2/17 5:13 PM, Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode wrote:

It's 2017; asking to be able to display an eps and keep it as part of the
pdf generated doesn't seem like it's asking much.


I don't know much about EPS or how it relates to PDF. But on Linux, LC 
supports EPS objects. Mac is sorta/kinda Linux. I wonder if something 
could be done about that.


--
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com

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