Re: [PHP] Simple PDF manipulation

Interesting, that's a good idea. I was not aware that it was possible to load an existing PDF into memory and then add stuff to it.


On Dec 27, 2006, at 7:28 AM, tedd wrote:

At 6:32 AM -0800 12/27/06, Brian Dunning wrote:
Let's say I have a complicated PDF document, like a Christmas card, that was made in Illustrator -- too complicated to easily create from scratch using PDFlib. Is there a way to use PHP make simple text changes - like changing "Dear XXX" to "Dear John"? I've opened the files with a text editor and cannot locate the simple text, it appears to be encoded somehow. The PDF has no security or encryption in it. Thanks....

Brian:

I'm not saying that there is/isn't a way to do this, but I tried and failed.

In my investigation, I found that the insides of a PDF file are not conducive to a simple search and replace mechanism. The text is encoded in some fashion that is not easy to decode and reassemble.

The solution I came up with was to combine the existing PDF file with my coding and write over (on top of) the old to produce the new PDF that I wanted. In your case, take your Christmas Card with a big space where "xxx" appears and then write over that space with "John" in your new code.

I wish someone would show me a simpler way to do this.

hth's

tedd
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