Leon is a developer at IDRsolutions and product manager for BuildVu . He oversees the BuildVu product strategy and roadmap in addition to spending lots of time writing code.

At IDR Solutions we have being developing a range of PDF software since 1999. We have a Java PDF Viewer and SDK, an Acrobat forms to HTML5 converter, a PDF to HTML5 converter and a Java ImageIO replacement). This has given us a lot of experience with the PDF file format and we have tried to share this knowledge on our blog. If you really want to know what goes on inside PDF files, these articles will give you all the details!

This is part 1 of the index, which is aimed to give an overview of the format. In part 2, we talk a lot more about PDF bugs, gotchas and tips

The PDF File Format:



This section contains in depth information regarding how content is actually stored in a PDF file – what you see when you open a PDF in a text editor.

Viewing PDF Objects

PDF Object Streams

Multiple Trailers on PDF Files

PDF Xref Tables Explained

Text Streams

decodeArray

How are images stored?

PDF Dictionary

Named Locations

Linearized PDF Files

Form XObjects

More articles…

Images in PDF:

Images – An Overview

3 Examples of unusual ways to use PDF Image Masks

3 Types of Image Mask

PDF Image DPI

Advantages of JBIG2 compression in PDF explained

There are several version of each image inside your PDF file

More articles…

If you require PDF to Image Conversion or Image Extraction from PDF, you may be interested in JPedal, our Java PDF Library.

Colors in PDF:

Color – An Overview

PDF Image Color Depth

Indexed Colorspaces

The Color White in PDF Files

ICCBased Colorspaces

YCCK Color Conversion in PDF Files

More articles…

Text in PDF:

PDF Text – An Overview

ActualText

PDF Text Co-ordinates

Carriage returns, spaces and other gaps

More articles…

If you require PDF Text Extraction or PDF Text search, you may be interested in JPedal, our Java PDF Library.

Fonts in PDF:

PDF Fonts – An Overview

Introduction to PDF Font Technologies

Embedded CMAP Tables

What are CID Fonts?

Custom Font Encodings

Are there really 3 types of fonts in PDF files?

Standard Font Information

Glyph Names – What is in a name?

TrueType Font Hinting

More articles…

PDF Forms, Annotations & Interactive Elements:

Introduction to PDF Forms

Introduction to FDF Forms

Introduction to XFA Forms

Interactive Elements

Layers in PDFs

More articles…

PDF Security:

PDF Security (Passwords and Certificates)

Brief Overview of Security Features offered by the PDF file format

PDF Password Protection

Protecting PDF Content

More articles…

General:

What new PDF developers need to know

Learning about PDF

Text, Shapes and Images

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) PDF files

Bookmarks and Links

What is PDF Pagesize? CropBox, MediaBox, ArtBox, BleedBox, TrimBox?

PDF Format and Style Information

A quick guide to PDF for Java (and non-Java) developers

Why writing a PDF parser is such a challenging task (Part 234)

Searching PDF Files

How do stacks work in PDF files

How do PDF files manage limitless position accuracy of shapes & images?

More articles…

Make your own PDF file – Hello World:



One of our developers bravely set out to write the ‘Hello World’ tutorial of PDF files, creating a PDF file from scratch manually, in a text editor. Follow the series here:

Part 1: PDF Objects and Data Types

Part 2: Structure of a PDF file

Part 2.5: Create a non working PDF

Part 3: DIY Blank Page

Part 4: Hello World Pdf

Part 5: Path objects

Part 6: Graphics State

If you enjoyed this index, we have also have a second, longer index covering all the nitty gritty details and gotchas we have found from over 13 years of working with PDF!

Is there something that we haven’t covered? Leave us a comment and we will see what we can do!

IDRsolutions develop a Java PDF library, a PDF forms to HTML5 converter, a PDF to HTML5 or SVG converter and a Java Image Library that doubles as an ImageIO replacement. On the blog our team post about anything interesting they learn about.