Asp Forum - [ANN] PDF::Writer 1.1.0

Austin Ziegler

6/30/2005 2:48:00 AM

Whew. The problem with making certain types of API changes is that onceyou start, you don't want to stop. I am pleased to finally releasePDF::Writer 1.1.0, which as promised both breaks and fixes drawing andtext angles; angles are now expressed in terms of counter-clockwisedirections, which is the common direction recognised by most vectorgraphics programs, including the SVG standard. In addition to thesechanges—which are not warned—there are two API changes to text methodswhich PDF::Writer tries to correct for and warn against; these changeswill be made permanent with no warning for PDF::Writer 2.0 when it isreleased.Only one bug against PDF::Writer has been filed so far, and thatregarded a known problem in the ZLib extension included with Ruby andthe installation of the PDF::Writer 1.0.1 gem (the first usable gem ofPDF::Writer) on Windows. The newest gem resolves this, but it may appearagain in the future until Ruby 1.8.3 has been released.Also new is the PDF::Writer website on RubyForge (see below) and a newgraphical look to go with it.= What is PDF::Writer for Ruby?It provides the ability to create PDF documents using only native Rubylibraries. There are several demo programs available in the demo/directory. The canonical documentation for PDF::Writer is "manual.pdf",which can be generated using bin/techbook (just "techbook" for RubyGemusers) and the manual file "manual.pwd".Homepage:: http://ruby-pdf.rubyforge.org/pdf-write...:: http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=81&release_id=241...:: 2003—2005, Austin ZieglerThis software is based on Adobe's PDF Reference, Fifth Edition, version1.6. This and earlier editions are available from Adobe's PDF developerwebsite[1].== LICENCE NOTESPDF::Writer is generally available under an MIT-style licence with fewrestrictions, but there are subtle restrictions on portions of thelibrary, and there are patents for which some rights have been grantedby Adobe. Please read the file LICENCE[2] for more information.== Requirements and InstallationPDF::Writer requires Ruby 1.8.2 or better, color-tools 1.0.0[3] orbetter, and Transaction::Simple 1.3.0[4] or better.Once these packages are installed, PDF::Writer can be installed with: % ruby setup.rbAlternatively, you can use the RubyGems version of PDF::Writer availableas pdf-writer-1.1.0.gem from the usual sources. The gem knows itsdependencies on Transaction::Simple and color-tools and offers toinstall them.== Demo ProgramsFor the first time, the demo programs are available as a separatelydownloadable package.If PDF::Writer has been installed with RubyGems, then the demos willneed to be run explicitly referencing RubyGems: % ruby -rubygems chunkybacon.rb== Changes for PDF::Writer 1.1.0: June 29, 2005 NOTE: The first two changes are INCOMPATIBLE with previous versions of PDF::Writer. If you find that your text is showing up at odd angles, negate the value. That is, if you have 90 as your angle, use -90 (or 270) as your angle and it will work like it used to.* Axis transformations in PDF::Writer::Graphics have been fixed.* Text axis transformation in PDF::Writer#add_text has been fixed.* Changed #text_width and #text_line_width so that the text value is the first parameter and the size parameter is second, and is optional. The code warns about it now, but it will break in PDF::Writer 2.0.* Changed #add_text and #add_text_wrap so that the text parameter is before the now-optional size parameter. The code warns about it now, but it will break in PDF::Writer 2.0.* Added #transform_matrix.* Fixed compression. NOTE: Compression must be set early in the documentation process, or only some items will be compressed in the document. The various #save_as methods have been changed to reflect this fact.* Enabled the placement of encoding differences dictionaries in the resulting PDF document. This change should be considered experimental.* Added TTF licence checking. The embedding of a file not licenced for inclusion in a document will continue, but a warning will be output to standard error. This code has been gakked from FPDF (http://ww...).* Properly supporting symbolic font flags now.* Added support and documentation for a separately downloadable demo package.* Expanded the installation documentation.* Added the ability to make images clickable links with any of the three image insertion methods.-austin1: http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/index_refer...: http://ruby-pdf.rubyforge.org/pdf-writer/lic...: http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=295&releas...: http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=81&release... Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca

2 Answers

Shashank Date

6/30/2005 3:10:00 AM

Austin Ziegler

6/30/2005 12:29:00 PM

On 6/29/05, Austin Ziegler <halostatue@gmail.com> wrote:
> Only one bug against PDF::Writer has been filed so far, and that
> regarded a known problem in the ZLib extension included with Ruby and
> the installation of the PDF::Writer 1.0.1 gem (the first usable gem of
> PDF::Writer) on Windows. The newest gem resolves this, but it may appear
> again in the future until Ruby 1.8.3 has been released.

Two minor issues have been brought to my attention.

1. The ri documentation does not automatically build with the setup
install. This is
not a critical error.
2. More critically, the images/ directory in the .tar.gz are corrupted
and neither the
manual nor the demo programs will build. Also, the demo package download does
not (at this point) include the images; this will be fixed soon.
The images, in the
meantime, can be downloaded separately from
http://ruby-pdf.rubyforge.org/pdf-writer/images-1....

My apologies for these issues.

-austin
--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
* Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca

comp.lang.ruby

[ANN] PDF::Writer 1.1.0

Austin Ziegler

Shashank Date

Austin Ziegler

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