I am still with a huge rewrite of PDF output.
The challenge of Chinese characters was already answered by tclFPDF.
https://github.com/lamuzzachiodi/tclfpdf
A 2nd challenge is to add URL links. tFPDF also has the method "Write",
which may take a URL Link.

So far, I use TCLPDF.
I would love to have those two features ported to TCLPDF:
- add the dynamic font creation for arbitrary unicode text.
- add the possibility to add a hyerlink with a clickable URL

But I suppose, I have to migrate my code to tFPDF.

Or do you see any chance to unify the projects?

Thank you and take care,
Harald

Am 23.02.24 um 17:19 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
> I am still with a huge rewrite of PDF output.
> The challenge of Chinese characters was already answered by tclFPDF.
> https://github.com/lamuzzachiodi/tclfpdf
> A 2nd challenge is to add URL links. tFPDF also has the method "Write",
> which may take a URL Link.
>
> So far, I use TCLPDF.

I suppose you mean pdf4tcl by Peter Spjuth, correct? A good while ago, I
added PDF attachments to pdf4tcl.

> I would love to have those two features ported to TCLPDF:
>    -   add the dynamic font creation for arbitrary unicode text.
>    -   add the possibility to add a hyerlink with a clickable URL
>
> But I suppose, I have to migrate my code to tFPDF.
>
> Or do you see any chance to unify the projects?

Adding links to pdf4tcl is probably relatively easy. The spec is totally
open:
https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/PDF32000_2008.pdf
See under 12.5.6.5 "Link annotations", below the table you see how it
the code would look like. Before compression, PDF is a text format with
the characteristic << >> brackets for objects (they are like dicts).
Such a link is not visible by itself, it is attached to some area on the
page, where you can draw anything else to make the link clear. In
pdf4tcl, you can use "AddObject" to add such a thing.

The thing with the UTF-8 text seems much more complicated. I haven't
looked into PDF recently; in the original version, each font could only
have 256 characters and so the software split fonts into multiple
subfonts. ISTR that for the Chinese case, there was an alternative way
of font handling with 64k characters. If there is a way to make a PDF
font with all characters, than you only need to port over the code for
the font creation and can then use it. If, however, tFPDF does it as in
the old days, creating multiple fonts and switching in the fly between
them, then I'm afraid that would mean to replace the entire text drawing
code. If you don't feel like looking into it yourself, maybe you can pay
someone to do it ;)

Christian

Am 23.02.2024 um 21:04 schrieb Christian Gollwitzer:
> Am 23.02.24 um 17:19 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
>> I am still with a huge rewrite of PDF output.
>> The challenge of Chinese characters was already answered by tclFPDF.
>> https://github.com/lamuzzachiodi/tclfpdf
>> A 2nd challenge is to add URL links. tFPDF also has the method
>> "Write", which may take a URL Link.
>>
>> So far, I use TCLPDF.
>
> I suppose you mean pdf4tcl by Peter Spjuth, correct? A good while ago, I
> added PDF attachments to pdf4tcl.
>
>> I would love to have those two features ported to TCLPDF:
>>     -   add the dynamic font creation for arbitrary unicode text.
>>     -   add the possibility to add a hyerlink with a clickable URL
>>
>> But I suppose, I have to migrate my code to tFPDF.
>>
>> Or do you see any chance to unify the projects?
>
> Adding links to pdf4tcl is probably relatively easy. The spec is totally
> open:
> https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/PDF32000_2008.pdf
> See under 12.5.6.5 "Link annotations", below the table you see how it
> the code would look like. Before compression, PDF is a text format with
> the characteristic << >> brackets for objects (they are like dicts).
> Such a link is not visible by itself, it is attached to some area on the
> page, where you can draw anything else to make the link clear. In
> pdf4tcl, you can use "AddObject" to add such a thing.
>
> The thing with the UTF-8 text seems much more complicated. I haven't
> looked into PDF recently; in the original version, each font could only
> have 256 characters and so the software split fonts into multiple
> subfonts. ISTR that for the Chinese case, there was an alternative way
> of font handling with 64k characters. If there is a way to make a PDF
> font with all characters, than you only need to port over the code for
> the font creation and can then use it. If, however, tFPDF does it as in
> the old days, creating multiple fonts and switching in the fly between
> them, then I'm afraid that would mean to replace the entire text drawing
> code. If you don't feel like looking into it yourself, maybe you can pay
> someone to do it ;)
>
>          Christian

Hi Christian,

thanks for the valuable contribution and motivation !
Take care,
Harald

Am 26.02.2024 um 09:59 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
> Am 23.02.2024 um 21:04 schrieb Christian Gollwitzer:
>> Am 23.02.24 um 17:19 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
>>> I am still with a huge rewrite of PDF output.
>>> The challenge of Chinese characters was already answered by tclFPDF.
>>> https://github.com/lamuzzachiodi/tclfpdf
>>> A 2nd challenge is to add URL links. tFPDF also has the method
>>> "Write", which may take a URL Link.
>>>
>>> So far, I use TCLPDF.
>>
>> I suppose you mean pdf4tcl by Peter Spjuth, correct? A good while ago,
>> I added PDF attachments to pdf4tcl.
>>
>>> I would love to have those two features ported to TCLPDF:
>>>     -   add the dynamic font creation for arbitrary unicode text.
>>>     -   add the possibility to add a hyerlink with a clickable URL
>>>
>>> But I suppose, I have to migrate my code to tFPDF.
>>>
>>> Or do you see any chance to unify the projects?
>>
>> Adding links to pdf4tcl is probably relatively easy. The spec is
>> totally open:
>> https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/PDF32000_2008.pdf
>> See under 12.5.6.5 "Link annotations", below the table you see how it
>> the code would look like. Before compression, PDF is a text format
>> with the characteristic << >> brackets for objects (they are like
>> dicts). Such a link is not visible by itself, it is attached to some
>> area on the page, where you can draw anything else to make the link
>> clear. In pdf4tcl, you can use "AddObject" to add such a thing.
>>
>> The thing with the UTF-8 text seems much more complicated. I haven't
>> looked into PDF recently; in the original version, each font could
>> only have 256 characters and so the software split fonts into multiple
>> subfonts. ISTR that for the Chinese case, there was an alternative way
>> of font handling with 64k characters. If there is a way to make a PDF
>> font with all characters, than you only need to port over the code for
>> the font creation and can then use it. If, however, tFPDF does it as
>> in the old days, creating multiple fonts and switching in the fly
>> between them, then I'm afraid that would mean to replace the entire
>> text drawing code. If you don't feel like looking into it yourself,
>> maybe you can pay someone to do it ;)
>>
>>           Christian
>
> Hi Christian,
>
> thanks for the valuable contribution and motivation !
> Take care,
> Harald

Christian,
I have put your valuable information to two tickets in pdf4tcl.

Do you volunteer to be payed ;-).

I think, my current application with only some lines of Chinese Text
will work-out with the current possibilities.
But it would be great, if we should just not worry.

I also asked Jan about a list of Unicode Codepoints an encoding covers.
He answered, that this information is available in memory when an
encoding is loaded. That may also be helpful for the issue.
But with TCL 9, we may check, if a certain string may be covered by a
certain encoding.

Thanks for all and take care,
Harald

Am 26.02.2024 um 19:12 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
> Am 26.02.2024 um 09:59 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
>> Am 23.02.2024 um 21:04 schrieb Christian Gollwitzer:
>>> Am 23.02.24 um 17:19 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
>>>> I am still with a huge rewrite of PDF output.
>>>> The challenge of Chinese characters was already answered by tclFPDF.
>>>> https://github.com/lamuzzachiodi/tclfpdf
>>>> A 2nd challenge is to add URL links. tFPDF also has the method
>>>> "Write", which may take a URL Link.
>>>>
>>>> So far, I use TCLPDF.
>>>
>>> I suppose you mean pdf4tcl by Peter Spjuth, correct? A good while
>>> ago, I added PDF attachments to pdf4tcl.
>>>
>>>> I would love to have those two features ported to TCLPDF:
>>>>     -   add the dynamic font creation for arbitrary unicode text.
>>>>     -   add the possibility to add a hyerlink with a clickable URL
>>>>
>>>> But I suppose, I have to migrate my code to tFPDF.
>>>>
>>>> Or do you see any chance to unify the projects?
>>>
>>> Adding links to pdf4tcl is probably relatively easy. The spec is
>>> totally open:
>>> https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/pdfstandards/PDF32000_2008.pdf
>>> See under 12.5.6.5 "Link annotations", below the table you see how it
>>> the code would look like. Before compression, PDF is a text format
>>> with the characteristic << >> brackets for objects (they are like
>>> dicts). Such a link is not visible by itself, it is attached to some
>>> area on the page, where you can draw anything else to make the link
>>> clear. In pdf4tcl, you can use "AddObject" to add such a thing.
>>>
>>> The thing with the UTF-8 text seems much more complicated. I haven't
>>> looked into PDF recently; in the original version, each font could
>>> only have 256 characters and so the software split fonts into
>>> multiple subfonts. ISTR that for the Chinese case, there was an
>>> alternative way of font handling with 64k characters. If there is a
>>> way to make a PDF font with all characters, than you only need to
>>> port over the code for the font creation and can then use it. If,
>>> however, tFPDF does it as in the old days, creating multiple fonts
>>> and switching in the fly between them, then I'm afraid that would
>>> mean to replace the entire text drawing code. If you don't feel like
>>> looking into it yourself, maybe you can pay someone to do it ;)
>>>
>>>           Christian
>>
>> Hi Christian,
>>
>> thanks for the valuable contribution and motivation !
>> Take care,
>> Harald
>
> Christian,
> I have put your valuable information to two tickets in pdf4tcl.
>
> Do you volunteer to be payed ;-).
>
> I think, my current application with only some lines of Chinese Text
> will work-out with the current possibilities.
> But it would be great, if we should just not worry.
>
> I also asked Jan about a list of Unicode Codepoints an encoding covers.
> He answered, that this information is available in memory when an
> encoding is loaded. That may also be helpful for the issue.
> But with TCL 9, we may check, if a certain string may be covered by a
> certain encoding.
>
> Thanks for all and take care,
> Harald

Thanks to Christian for the answer and motivation.
It was not so hard to implement. A patch is in ticket
https://sourceforge.net/p/pdf4tcl/tickets/15/

Thanks for all !
Harald

Am 28.02.24 um 18:51 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
> Thanks to Christian for the answer and motivation.
> It was not so hard to implement. A patch is in ticket
> https://sourceforge.net/p/pdf4tcl/tickets/15/
>

That's great - I knew you could do it! Now you only have to dig into CJK
fonts... :P

Christian

Am 29.02.2024 um 18:33 schrieb Christian Gollwitzer:
> Am 28.02.24 um 18:51 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
>> Thanks to Christian for the answer and motivation.
>> It was not so hard to implement. A patch is in ticket
>> https://sourceforge.net/p/pdf4tcl/tickets/15/
>>
>
> That's great - I knew you could do it! Now you only have to dig into CJK
> fonts... :P
>
>     Christian
>

Thank you, Christian, I really appreciate your motivation and
professional information, which made this possible.
And the framework to add an anotation to a page was already there.
I suppose, you did that.

Tkan you so much,
Harald

Am 29.02.2024 um 18:33 schrieb Christian Gollwitzer:
> Am 28.02.24 um 18:51 schrieb Harald Oehlmann:
>> Thanks to Christian for the answer and motivation.
>> It was not so hard to implement. A patch is in ticket
>> https://sourceforge.net/p/pdf4tcl/tickets/15/
>>
>
> That's great - I knew you could do it! Now you only have to dig into CJK
> fonts... :P
>
>     Christian
>

Christian,

CJK? Oh, this is complex! So much code and tables in the font handling.
I solved the CJK issue with the present code. I count the codepoints and
have only 60, so it is far from 256. I will add some findings to pdf4tcl
tickets about additional observations.

Here is my report announcement in the thread "pdf4tcl and Chinese
characters"
> But now, this issue is solved using PDF4TCL as described at the very end
> of:
> https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/pdf4tcl
>
> It is quite manual and an automated process like in tclfpdf would be
> great. The pdf4tcl ticket tracked GOT 6 new tickets.
>

Thank you for all,
Harald

El 23/02/2024 a las 13:19, Harald Oehlmann escribió:
> I am still with a huge rewrite of PDF output.
> The challenge of Chinese characters was already answered by tclFPDF.
> https://github.com/lamuzzachiodi/tclfpdf
> A 2nd challenge is to add URL links. tFPDF also has the method "Write",
> which may take a URL Link.
>
> So far, I use TCLPDF.
> I would love to have those two features ported to TCLPDF:
>    -   add the dynamic font creation for arbitrary unicode text.
>    -   add the possibility to add a hyerlink with a clickable URL
>
> But I suppose, I have to migrate my code to tFPDF.
>
> Or do you see any chance to unify the projects?
>
> Thank you and take care,
> Harald

Hello, Harald,

with TCLFPDF you can use links to URL or to another place within the
document.

For Example :

package require tclfpdf
namespace import ::tclfpdf::*

;# First page
Init
AddPage
;# Add a Unicode font (uses UTF-8)
AddFont "DejaVu" "" "DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf" 1
SetFont "DejaVu" "" 14
Write 5 "To find out what's cool in this example, click "
set link [AddLink]
SetFont "DejaVu" "U" 14;
Write 5 "Здравствулте мир" $link
;# Second page
AddPage
SetLink $link
Image "logo.gif" 10 12 30 0 "" "http://www.fpdf.org"
Output "link.pdf"

Respect to font creation, you have the makefont utility (makefont
subdirectory). The second parameter is the encoding (default is cp1252).
Encodings are stored in .map files (there are availables cp1258
-Vietnamese- or cp874 -Thai- among others) but you could create your own.
For more info you can take a look to
http://www.fpdf.org/en/tutorial/tuto7.htm. This is the original doc in
PHP (sorry, i've forgeted add this doc in TCLFPDF). However, the
concepts and the application is the same.

Alejandro

Am 09.03.2024 um 00:03 schrieb Luis Alejandro Muzzachiodi:
> El 23/02/2024 a las 13:19, Harald Oehlmann escribió:
>> I am still with a huge rewrite of PDF output.
>> The challenge of Chinese characters was already answered by tclFPDF.
>> https://github.com/lamuzzachiodi/tclfpdf
>> A 2nd challenge is to add URL links. tFPDF also has the method
>> "Write", which may take a URL Link.
>>
>> So far, I use TCLPDF.
>> I would love to have those two features ported to TCLPDF:
>>     -   add the dynamic font creation for arbitrary unicode text.
>>     -   add the possibility to add a hyerlink with a clickable URL
>>
>> But I suppose, I have to migrate my code to tFPDF.
>>
>> Or do you see any chance to unify the projects?
>>
>> Thank you and take care,
>> Harald
>
> Hello, Harald,
>
> with TCLFPDF you can use links to URL or to another place within the
> document.
>
> For Example :
>
> package require tclfpdf
> namespace import  ::tclfpdf::*
>
> ;# First page
> Init
> AddPage
> ;# Add a Unicode font (uses UTF-8)
> AddFont "DejaVu" "" "DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf" 1
> SetFont "DejaVu" "" 14
> Write 5 "To find out what's cool in this example, click "
> set link [AddLink]
> SetFont "DejaVu" "U" 14;
> Write 5 "Здравствулте мир" $link
> ;# Second page
> AddPage
> SetLink $link
> Image "logo.gif" 10 12 30 0 "" "http://www.fpdf.org"
> Output "link.pdf"
>
> Respect to font creation, you have the makefont utility (makefont
> subdirectory). The second parameter is the encoding (default is cp1252).
> Encodings are stored in .map files (there are availables cp1258
> -Vietnamese- or cp874 -Thai- among others) but you could create your own.
> For more info you can take a look to
> http://www.fpdf.org/en/tutorial/tuto7.htm. This is the original doc in
> PHP (sorry, i've forgeted add this doc in TCLFPDF). However, the
> concepts and the application is the same.
>
>
> Alejandro

Ajejandro,
thank you for the great work, I appreciate !
Take care,
Harald