I am looking for a library which will allow me to render text and graphics output onto a PDF document. (Cairo is certainly an option.) I would like to know how OpenOffice writes PDF files to see if I could use the same library. What library is being used by OpenOffice for PDF export?
Edit: I am looking for a C or C++ library.
I looked everywhere to find out how to export any document to PDF using OpenOffice. I finally found a buried post in the OpenOffice forums that got me 90% there. Here is my 100% solution. Works with OpenOffice 3.1. You must install OpenOffice to use this code. You must include references to cli_basetypes, cli_cppuhelper, cli_oootypes, cli_ure, cli_uretypes. These dll references are found in the OpenOffice SDK. Sorry, but this is in C#.. not C/C++. HTH someone.
using unoidl.com.sun.star.lang; using unoidl.com.sun.star.uno; using unoidl.com.sun.star.bridge; using unoidl.com.sun.star.frame; using unoidl.com.sun.star.beans; public static void ConvertToPDF(string inputFile, string outputFile) { if (ConvertExtensionToFilterType(Path.GetExtension(inputFile)) == null) throw new InvalidProgramException("Unknown file type for OpenOffice. File = " + inputFile); StartOpenOffice(); //Get a ComponentContext unoidl.com.sun.star.uno.XComponentContext xLocalContext = uno.util.Bootstrap.bootstrap(); //Get MultiServiceFactory unoidl.com.sun.star.lang.XMultiServiceFactory xRemoteFactory = (unoidl.com.sun.star.lang.XMultiServiceFactory) xLocalContext.getServiceManager(); //Get a CompontLoader XComponentLoader aLoader = (XComponentLoader)xRemoteFactory.createInstance("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop"); //Load the sourcefile XComponent xComponent = null; try { xComponent = initDocument(aLoader, PathConverter(inputFile), "_blank"); //Wait for loading while (xComponent == null) { System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000); } // save/export the document saveDocument(xComponent, inputFile, PathConverter(outputFile)); } catch { throw; } finally { xComponent.dispose(); } } private static void StartOpenOffice() { Process[] ps = Process.GetProcessesByName("soffice.exe"); if (ps != null) { if (ps.Length > 0) return; else { Process p = new Process(); p.StartInfo.Arguments = "-headless -nofirststartwizard"; p.StartInfo.FileName = "soffice.exe"; p.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true; bool result = p.Start(); if (result == false) throw new InvalidProgramException("OpenOffice failed to start."); } } else { throw new InvalidProgramException("OpenOffice not found. Is OpenOffice installed?"); } } private static XComponent initDocument(XComponentLoader aLoader, string file, string target) { PropertyValue[] openProps = new PropertyValue[1]; openProps[0] = new PropertyValue(); openProps[0].Name = "Hidden"; openProps[0].Value = new uno.Any(true); XComponent xComponent = aLoader.loadComponentFromURL( file, target, 0, openProps); return xComponent; } private static void saveDocument(XComponent xComponent, string sourceFile, string destinationFile) { PropertyValue[] propertyValues = new PropertyValue[2]; propertyValues = new PropertyValue[2]; // Setting the flag for overwriting propertyValues[1] = new PropertyValue(); propertyValues[1].Name = "Overwrite"; propertyValues[1].Value = new uno.Any(true); //// Setting the filter name propertyValues[0] = new PropertyValue(); propertyValues[0].Name = "FilterName"; propertyValues[0].Value = new uno.Any(ConvertExtensionToFilterType(Path.GetExtension(sourceFile))); ((XStorable)xComponent).storeToURL(destinationFile, propertyValues); } private static string PathConverter(string file) { if (file == null || file.Length == 0) throw new NullReferenceException("Null or empty path passed to OpenOffice"); return String.Format("file:///{0}", file.Replace(@"\", "/")); } public static string ConvertExtensionToFilterType(string extension) { switch (extension) { case ".doc": case ".docx": case ".txt": case ".rtf": case ".html": case ".htm": case ".xml": case ".odt": case ".wps": case ".wpd": return "writer_pdf_Export"; case ".xls": case ".xlsb": case ".ods": return "calc_pdf_Export"; case ".ppt": case ".pptx": case ".odp": return "impress_pdf_Export"; default: return null; } } } What language are you working in? There are many PDF libraries out there. Search Stack Overflow for "pdf library [programming language]". There's tons of recommendations already.
OpenOffice uses the Sun PDF library as an extension to import PDFs, but I'm not sure what it uses to export them.
PDFCreator has an API that can help you.
http://www.pdfforge.org/forum/open-discussion/3063-api-sdk-pdfcreator