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Several ways for picture to PDF in MBS Plugins

How many ways to we have to come from a picture to a PDF in Xojo with MBS Xojo Plugins?

Let's see how many we find:

GraphicsMagick

We use GMImageMBS class to load the picture and save it to a file.

Sub test1(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // load picture into GraphicsMagick Dim g As New GMImageMBS(pic) // have it write to a PDF file g.write(file) End Sub

This should work cross platform all platforms (macOS, iOS, Windows and Linux).

NSImageView print to PDF

If we load the picture into a NSImageViewMBS object. Without having the control on a window, we can still use NSPrintOperationMBS class to print to a PDF file.

Sub test2(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // let's create an image view to hold our image Dim imageView As New NSImageViewMBS // with right size imageView.frame = New NSRectMBS(0, 0, pic.width, pic.height) // and load the picture into it imageView.image = New NSImageMBS(pic) // now we let it print to the PDF file Dim pi As NSPrintInfoMBS = NSPrintInfoMBS.sharedPrintInfo pi.SetSaveDestination(file) Dim p As NSPrintOperationMBS = NSPrintOperationMBS.printOperationWithView(imageView) p.showsPrintPanel = False p.showsProgressPanel = False Dim r As Boolean = p.runOperation End Sub

This is macOS only.

CGPDFDocument class

CoreGraphics comes with a CGPDFDocumentMBS class, which can be used to draw to PDF documents on macOS.

Sub test3(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // create new CoreGraphics PDF Document Dim r As New CGRectMBS(0,0,pic.Width,pic.Height) Dim output As CGContextMBS = file.NewCGPDFDocumentMBS(r,"SomeTitle","SomeAuthor","SomeCreator") // Create a new page output.BeginPage r // draw picture to PDF page Dim image As CGImageMBS = CGImageMBS.CreateImage(pic) output.DrawPicture(image, r) // cleanup output.EndPage output.Flush End Sub

This should work on macOS and iOS.

PDFDocument class

There is a Cocoa class PDFDocumentMBS in PDFKit framework to create PDF documents. We can use it with PDFPageMBS class to add picture page to our new document.

Sub test4(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // load image into NSImage Dim image As New NSImageMBS(pic) // now make a PDF Page with the image Dim page As New PDFPageMBS(image) // and create PDF document, so we can add page and write it to disk Dim doc As New PDFDocumentMBS doc.appendPage page Call doc.write(file) End Sub

This is macOS only. We could do iOS, but haven't yet.

ChartDirector

Since MBS Xojo ChartDirector Plugin can output PDF documents, we can just load the picture as background picture into a new chart.

Sub test5(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // create a new chart Dim c As New CDXYChartMBS(pic.Width, pic.Height) // get the draw area Dim d As CDDrawAreaMBS = c.getDrawArea // load picture data into it Call d.loadData(pic.ToData(Picture.Formats.PNG)) // and output chart as PDF Call c.makeChart(file) End Sub

This should work cross platform all platforms (macOS, iOS, Windows and Linux).

DynaPDF native

Of course our MBS Xojo DynaPDF Plugin can create a PDF with a picture. DynaPDF has the best options available, where you can control the filter used to store the image within the PDF document. Also you can control compression quality, colorspace and whether it gets scaled down.

Sub test6(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // create new DynaPDF workspace Dim d As New DynaPDFMBS // create PDF with destination file Call d.CreateNewPDF file // add a page Call d.Append // change page size to picture size Call d.SetPageWidth(pic.Width) Call d.SetPageHeight(pic.Height) // ask for JPEG compression at 80% Call d.SetCompressionFilter(d.kcfJPEG) Call d.SetJPEGQuality(80) // and insert picture Call d.InsertPicture(pic, 0, 0, pic.Width, pic.Height) // close page and file Call d.EndPage Call d.CloseFile End Sub

This will work cross platform on all platforms and just requires the Starter license, which was in OmegaBundle earlier this year.

DynaPDF with Graphics class

Since we got a Graphics class integration, we can also use that to draw the picture:

Sub test7(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // new DynaPDF environment Dim d As New DynaPDFMBS // create new PDF and append a page Call d.CreateNewPDF file Call d.Append // page size should match picture size Call d.SetPageWidth(pic.Width) Call d.SetPageHeight(pic.Height) // ask for Graphics object, so we can draw pictue there Dim g As Graphics = d.PageGraphics g.DrawPicture pic, 0, 0, pic.Width, pic.Height, 0, 0, pic.Width, pic.Height // cleanup Call d.EndPage Call d.CloseFile End Sub

CGImageDestination class

And it turns out the CGImageDestinationMBS class can also output PDF, so here we go:

Sub test8(pic as Picture, file as FolderItem) // we load picture into CGImage Dim image As CGImageMBS = CGImageMBS.CreateImage(pic) // and create a PDF writer Dim dest As CGImageDestinationMBS = CGImageDestinationMBS.CreateWithFile(file, "com.adobe.pdf", 1) // add image dest.AddImage(image, Nil) // now write file If dest.Finalize Then // okay Else MsgBox "Failed to save." End If End Sub

This should on macOS and iOS.

What is left? Well, we did leave away loading picture into a HTMLviewer to render PDF from there.

Which way is your preferred one?

The biggest plugin in space...
05 11 21 - 09:48