Poppler (software): Difference between revisions
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# To go beyond the goals of [[Xpdf]], and integrate with functionality provided by modern [[operating system]]s |
# To go beyond the goals of [[Xpdf]], and integrate with functionality provided by modern [[operating system]]s |
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As of the version 0.18 release in 2011, the poppler library represents a complete implementation of [[ |
As of the version 0.18 release in 2011, the poppler library represents a complete implementation of [[ISO 32000-1]], the PDF format standard, and is the first major free PDF library to support its forms (only [[Acroforms]] but not full [[XFA]] forms<ref name="bug18935">{{citation |url=https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18935 |title=Bug 18935 - Form data is not saved for PDF files using XFA forms, will show old values when opened in acroread / Adobe Reader |date=2008-12-07}}</ref><ref>{{citation |url=https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/poppler/+bug/321720 |title=PDF v1.7 asks to upgrade Adobe Reader |date=2009-01-27}}</ref>) and annotations features.<ref name="fsf-mission-complete">{{cite web |url= http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/gnu-pdf-project-leaves-high-priority-projects-list-mission-complete |title= GNU PDF project leaves FSF High Priority Projects list; mission complete! |date= October 6, 2011| accessdate= 2011-10-11 }}</ref> |
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Poppler itself is a [[fork (software development)|fork]] of [[Xpdf]]-3.0, a PDF viewer developed by Derek Noonburg of Glyph and Cog, LLC.<ref name="README"/><ref name="Homepage" /> |
Poppler itself is a [[fork (software development)|fork]] of [[Xpdf]]-3.0, a PDF viewer developed by Derek Noonburg of Glyph and Cog, LLC.<ref name="README"/><ref name="Homepage" /> |
Revision as of 17:12, 1 May 2014
Developer(s) | freedesktop.org |
---|---|
Initial release | March 4, 2005[nb 1] |
Stable release | 0.24.5
/ January 2, 2014[2] |
Preview release | 0.25.1
/ January 2, 2014[2] |
Repository | |
Written in | C++ |
Operating system | Linux, Unix, BSD, Windows |
Type | Library |
License | GPLv2 or GPLv3 |
Website | poppler.freedesktop.org |
In computing, Poppler (or libpoppler) is a free software library used to render PDF documents. Its development is supported by freedesktop.org. It is the most common such library on GNU/Linux systems,[3] and is used by the PDF viewers of the open source GNOME and KDE desktop environments.
The project was started by Kristian Høgsberg with two goals in mind:[4]
- To provide PDF rendering functionality as a shared library, in order to centralize maintenance effort
- To go beyond the goals of Xpdf, and integrate with functionality provided by modern operating systems
As of the version 0.18 release in 2011, the poppler library represents a complete implementation of ISO 32000-1, the PDF format standard, and is the first major free PDF library to support its forms (only Acroforms but not full XFA forms[5][6]) and annotations features.[3]
Poppler itself is a fork of Xpdf-3.0, a PDF viewer developed by Derek Noonburg of Glyph and Cog, LLC.[4][2]
The name "Poppler" comes from the animated series Futurama episode "The Problem with Popplers".[2]
PDF applications using Poppler
A number of free software applications use Poppler to render PDF documents[7]
Application | Graphical Toolkit |
---|---|
Evince | GTK+ |
qpdfview | Qt |
KPDF | Qt |
LibreOffice 4.2 | GTK+[8] |
Inkscape | GTK+ |
Okular | Qt |
pdftotext, pdftohtml, etc. | none |
TeXworks | Qt |
Xournal | GTK+ |
Features
Poppler can use two back-ends for drawing PDF documents, Cairo and Splash. Its features may depend on which back-end it employs. A third back-end based on Qt4's painting framework "Arthur", is available, but is incomplete and no longer under active development.[9] Bindings exist for Glib, Qt3, and Qt4, that provide interfaces to the Poppler backends, although the Qt3 and Qt4 bindings support only the Splash backend. There is a patchset available to add support for the Cairo backend to the Qt4 bindings,[10] but the Poppler project does not currently wish to integrate the feature into the library proper.[11]
Some characteristics of the back-ends include:
- Cairo: Anti-aliasing of vector graphics, and transparent objects.[7]
- Splash: Supports minification filtering of bitmaps.[7]
Poppler comes with a text-rendering back-end as well, which can be invoked from the command line utility pdftotext
. It is useful for searching for strings in PDFs from the command line, using the utility grep
, for instance.[12]
Example:
pdftotext file.pdf - | grep string
Poppler parially supports interactive documents using JavaScript,[13] annotations, and Acroforms. It does not support rendering of full XFA forms.[5]
See also
- List of PDF software
- GNU PDF and iText, two other open source PDF libraries
Notes
References
- ^ "Poppler Releases". Retrieved 2013-12-30.
- ^ a b c d "Poppler Homepage". Retrieved 2014-01-03.
- ^ a b "GNU PDF project leaves FSF High Priority Projects list; mission complete!". October 6, 2011. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ a b "Poppler README file". Retrieved 2010-01-21.
- ^ a b Bug 18935 - Form data is not saved for PDF files using XFA forms, will show old values when opened in acroread / Adobe Reader, 2008-12-07
- ^ PDF v1.7 asks to upgrade Adobe Reader, 2009-01-27
- ^ a b c "Poppler Wiki. Information about Poppler". Retrieved 2010-01-21.
- ^ https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/4.2
- ^ Re: [poppler] Qt4 Arthur
- ^ giddie/poppler-qt4-cairo-backend · GitHub
- ^ Bug 25240 – Cairo backend for Qt4 wrapper
- ^ "Searching PDF Files With grep". Retrieved 2010-01-21.
- ^ "Poppler PDF library learns Javascript". September 12, 2008. Retrieved 2010-01-21.
- Albert Astals Cid (29 August 2005) The Poppler Library, presentation at the 2005 KDE conference