Customer Reviews

iText in Action: Creating and Manipulating PDF

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In January 2006 I was assigned to build a system that would create lots of PDF reports, typically with hundreds of pages of tables, and with tables nested in other tables. I started with an an open-source tool called BIRT that is well-designed and powerful, but it didn't quite give me sufficient low-level control over some aspects of PDF creation. When I realized that BIRT wasn't going to work for me, I was behind schedule and in trouble. Then I discovered iText. (BIRT actually is built using iText jar files.) I found that iText gave me exactly what I needed: an easy-to-use yet powerful Java API for creating PDF files. The remainder of the project, using iText, went smoothly, and my boss was very happy with the results. But I sure wish that I'd had Bruno Lowagie's "iText in Action" book at the time! That would have shaved a few weeks off of the project and would have saved me from learning some things painfully, by trial and error. As the original developer of iText, Bruno Lowagie is uniquely qualified to write this book. He obviously put a huge amount of effort into it, reflecting his longstanding commitment to iText. He made every effort to explain things as clearly as possible, and to document the pitfalls as well as the attractive features. It is evidently a labor of love for him. The book is written to the high editorial standards of other Manning books, with clear organization, good typography and layout, and so on. I highly recommended iText itself, and also this book, to anyone who is using Java to work with PDF files.

I've always figured that there should be some way to create PDF files without the manual effort of any 3rd party software client. Now I find out there is a way, and it's rather exciting... iText In Action by Bruno Lowagie covers the iText open source software project. It's a very well done reference manual that can also serve as a tutorial for a decent Java developer.

Contents:
Part 1 - Introduction: iText - when and why; PDF engine jump-start; PDF - why and when
Part 2 - Basic Building Blocks: Composing text elements; Inserting images; Constructing tables; Constructing columns
Part 3 - PDF Text and Graphics: Choosing the right font; Using fonts; Constructing and painting paths; Adding color and text; Drawing to Java Graphics2D
Part 4 - Interactive PDF: Browsing a PDF document; Automating PDF creation; Creating annotations and fields; Filling and signing AcroForms; iText in web applications; Under the hood
Appendixes: Class diagrams; Creating barcodes; Open parameters; Signing a PDF with a smart card; Dealing with exceptions; Pdf/X, Pdf/A, and tagged PDF; Resources; index

Lowagie starts off with a brief background of how iText came into being, along with a scenario of where the ability to programmatically create PDF files could dramatically change the way a college would run a department. Then after a short Hello World example that involves creating a simple document, he delves into all the different features and capabilities. The book at this point starts to change from tutorial to reference manual, but it's done in such a way that you could just keep working through the material in tutorial fashion with little effort (and good results). The example code in all the chapters are extensively annotated and explained, so you're not left to your own devices to try and figure out what the logic is trying to accomplish. In fact, I would say that the code annotation and commentary is some of the best I've seen in a book of this type. Great job...

The main target audience for this book is the Java developer, as the iText project is Java-based. There are .NET ports for J# and C#, and knowing how close those languages are to Java, this book should work pretty well for those development efforts with a little bit of thought and modification. Other languages should be able to use the iText toolkit if they have some way to call Java code modules from within their programs. As a Notes/Domino developer, I should be able to utilize all of this package in any Java agents I write, and the LS2J feature of LotusScript might also work well. After reading this book, I know I have some things I need to try...

If you have any sort of need involving the creation of PDF files from within your own system, iText is a great alternative to explore. And if that seems to be the way to go, I don't know of any better book to get than this one...

This is a great book for people developing or maintaining applications using iText. It covers every corner-case I've run into, typically offering various options on how to solve a problem. The writing is concise, with easily approachable chapters and examples.

this book is a good reference for iText developers it covers pretty much all API used to create pdf docs.. enjoyed reading it

Useful guide, good examples. works with c# via itextSharp also. For a free PDF generation API, IText does the job.

I work for a govn IT shop that uses Java Apache Struts as the base of our framework for our internet and itranet apps. Allot of the web sites on the net have a little bit of information on IOWAGIE iText coding but not enough details. This book is a must for java shops who use this technology as away of delivery their PDF documents to the user. This is book is a must!

I needed a resource to be able to build PDF files from other PDF files and add other custom pages.

This was a major help in getting it done.

Don

This book was just what I needed. It explains things very clearly and had me productive very quickly. I learned a number of things I wouldn't have been able to figure out on my own.

I am an IT professional and I find this book very difficult to follow. The author seems to have no idea how to present information. He claims that the code is available on his web-site but I haven't managed to find the examples that I need. I think iText is very powerful but this book is not well written!

This is a best book I have ever seen. It has every details about how to use the iText. It's very clear in every technical aspects. iText is also a great API for Java programmer. It's also really easy to learn. I love iText.

I love this book. I strongly recommand this book.