pdfk

A wrapper library of iTextSharp for drawing graphs.
Drawing graphs to pdf in a "WYTIWYT"(What You Think Is What You Get) way.

Dependency

iTextSharp: https://github.com/itext/itextsharp
Newtonsoft Json: http://www.newtonsoft.com/json

The respective dll files should be placed at ./lib directory.

Usage

Usage: pdfk.exe fonts_dir style graphics output

• fonts_dir:
  When you want to use fonts more than embedded, you can specify directory contains font files(such as .ttf files). You need to manually register those fonts in ./FontFactory.cs. This parameter is ignored by default.

• style: Path to style json file.

• graphics: Path to graphics json file.

• output: Path to output pdf file.

Sample

Sample is used to demonstrate the formats of style and graphics json files. This sample is from "Rainbow over the Windows"(Ruxcon 2016 topic presented by zer0mem and me). After building this project, you can run ./sample/ruxcon_RotW_graph.py to create sample pdf file.

Format

style json format

Block tracks a group of graphics operators, these operators inside a block will be rendered using this block's coordinates.

A block's coordinates should be specified at style json file.

• page: this block will rendered in which page. Available options include "all", "none", "odd", "even", "[index]", "[start_index]:[end_index]".
• x: left boundary coordinate in its parent block, value is specified in units, each unit is 1/PageProperty.RESOLUTION of its parent block's width in horizontal direction.
• y: bottom boundary coordinate in its parent block, value is specified in units, each unit is 1/PageProperty.RESOLUTION of its parent block's height in vertical direction.
• width: width coordinate in its parent block, value is specified in horizontal units.
• height: height coordinate in its parent block, value is specified in vertical units.
• rows: this block will be divided into rows cells equally in vertical direction.
• columns: this block will be divided into columns cells equally in horizontal direction.

A special main style can be used in style json file, it will define global options for document.

• pages: how many pages contained in this document.
• width: width of document page, in pixels.
• height: height of document page, in pixels.
• show_page: 1 for showing page numbers at the bottom of each page, 0 for hiding.

graphics json format

Graphics json file defines the graphics operators for drawing each block.

Each graphics operator is in the following format:

    <opr_name>(params_1, params_2, ...);

Each block can have M cells(rows * columns), and those graphics operators can be spread into N separated strings, and those strings will be fitted into M cells in such a way:

    cells_content = [None] * M
    for idx in range(N):
        cells_content[idx % M] = strings[N]

The available built-in graphics operators are:

• fill(red, green, blue): set RGB color for fill.
• fill(): fill current path.
• stroke(red, green, blue): set RGB color for stroke.
• stroke(): stroke current path.
• Bg(red, green, blue): set RGB background color.
• BT(): begin text.
• ET(): end text.
• Tj(content): show text.
• Tf(font, size): set font name and font size.
• Tr(render_mode): set text rendering mode.
• Td(x, y): set text start position.
• w(stroke_width): set stroke width.
• Tc(character_spacing): set character spacing.
• Tw(word_spacing): set word spacing.
• TL(leading): set leading.
• Tz(horizontal_scaling): set horizontal scaling.
• Ts(text_rise): set text rise.
• J(line_cap): set line cap.
• j(line_join): set line join.
• M(miter_limit): set miterlimit.
• dash(dash_unit): set dash in units, if parameter is 0, then no dash.
• moveTo(x, y): move to (x, y).
• lineTo(x, y): line from current position to (x, y).
• rect(x, y, width, height): draw a rectangle.
• line(x1, y1, x2, y2): line from (x1, y1) to (x2, y2).
• grid(x, y, width, height, columns, rows): draw grids.
• curveTo(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3): triple besier curve from current position to (x3, y3), with handle point (x1, y1) and (x2, y2).
• fs(): fill and stroke().
• closePath(): close current path.
• saveState(): save graphics state.

Those graphics operators are all pretty strait-forward, they are just some simple wrappers of pdf built-in operators(More information in PDF Manual)

A new-defined block can also be referenced by other blocks within graphics json:

    "outline":
  	[
  	    "line(0, 0, 0, 10000);",
  	    "line(10000, 0, 10000, 10000);",
  	    "line(0, 0, 10000, 0);",
  	    "line(0, 10000, 10000, 10000);",
  	],
  	"text_1":
  	[
  	    "outline();BT();Tf(\"courier_b\", 4000);Td(1000, 3000);Tj(\"I am surrounded by outline!\");ET();"
  	]

But now no parameters can be passed to a new-defined block, so it only works in MACRO way.