Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Building an online PDF editor from scratch
Search
Zbigniew Siciarz
January 21, 2013
Programming
3
1.1k
Building an online PDF editor from scratch
My talk at PyWaw #20.
http://www.pywaw.org/21-01-2013
Zbigniew Siciarz
January 21, 2013
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Zbigniew Siciarz
See All by Zbigniew Siciarz
What if Socrates was a dev?
zsiciarz
0
140
Calling Rust from other languages
zsiciarz
3
630
An introduction to the Rust ecosystem
zsiciarz
5
1.8k
Python3-only Django project - the benefits
zsiciarz
1
370
My God, it's full of stars! (and planets and Python)
zsiciarz
0
3.3k
PostgreSQL & Django - a tasty mix
zsiciarz
2
440
IPython: tips, tricks & magic
zsiciarz
8
3.5k
ShiningPanda: simple CI hosting for Python
zsiciarz
1
110
requests, czyli HTTP dla ludzi
zsiciarz
1
120
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
Startups on Rails in Past, Present and Future–Irina Nazarova, RailsConf 2025
irinanazarova
0
310
QA x AIエコシステム段階構築作戦
osu
0
210
AI コーディングエージェントの時代へ:JetBrains が描く開発の未来
masaruhr
2
220
Go製CLIツールをnpmで配布するには
syumai
0
760
코딩 에이전트 체크리스트: Claude Code ver.
nacyot
0
1k
Bedrock AgentCore ObservabilityによるAIエージェントの運用
licux
8
360
Git Sync を超える!OSS で実現する CDK Pull 型デプロイ / Deploying CDK with PipeCD in Pull-style
tkikuc
4
470
Streamlitで実現できるようになったこと、実現してくれたこと
ayumu_yamaguchi
2
230
PHPUnitの限界をPlaywrightで補完するテストアプローチ
yuzneri
0
350
バイブスあるコーディングで ~PHP~ 便利ツールをつくるプラクティス
uzulla
1
300
SQLアンチパターン第2版 データベースプログラミングで陥りがちな失敗とその対策 / Intro to SQL Antipatterns 2nd
twada
PRO
34
10k
ご注文の差分はこちらですか? 〜 AWS CDK のいろいろな差分検出と安全なデプロイ
konokenj
4
710
Featured
See All Featured
Reflections from 52 weeks, 52 projects
jeffersonlam
351
21k
Adopting Sorbet at Scale
ufuk
77
9.5k
Learning to Love Humans: Emotional Interface Design
aarron
273
40k
RailsConf & Balkan Ruby 2019: The Past, Present, and Future of Rails at GitHub
eileencodes
138
34k
What’s in a name? Adding method to the madness
productmarketing
PRO
23
3.6k
GraphQLの誤解/rethinking-graphql
sonatard
71
11k
"I'm Feeling Lucky" - Building Great Search Experiences for Today's Users (#IAC19)
danielanewman
229
22k
Code Review Best Practice
trishagee
69
19k
Improving Core Web Vitals using Speculation Rules API
sergeychernyshev
18
1k
The Web Performance Landscape in 2024 [PerfNow 2024]
tammyeverts
8
720
Stop Working from a Prison Cell
hatefulcrawdad
271
21k
Being A Developer After 40
akosma
90
590k
Transcript
Building an online PDF editor from scratch PyWaw #20, 21.01.2013
Zbigniew Siciarz @zsiciarz http://siciarz.net
Why?
Disclaimer • still not a full-blown editor • proof of
concept • simple way to add rich media content to digital magazines
Current status
Links
Multimedia
Go to page
Everything is a link • website URLs (d’oh!) • multimedia
content (audio/video/galleries) • internal links („go to page”) • custom HTML5 widgets
Workflow 1. upload a PDF file 2. preprocessing on the
server 3. add widgets, links etc. in web editor 4. save and create package 5. publish to mobile devices 6. download package and display content Publisher
Preprocessing • run asynchronously as a queued task • extract
metadata from uploaded file • create page thumbnails (with ImageMagick) • find any existing links • mark as unpublished
Keep existing links! • extract links with PyPDF2 • store
in database as PdfLink objects • display in web editor
Dimensions and boxes • cartesian coordinate system • box is
a list of 4 floats: [x1, y1, x2, y2] • PDF units = 1/72”= pt x y (0, 0) (x1, y1) (x2, y2)
Dimensions and boxes • artBox
Dimensions and boxes • artBox • bleedBox
Dimensions and boxes • artBox • bleedBox • cropBox
Dimensions and boxes • artBox • bleedBox • cropBox •
mediaBox
Dimensions and boxes • artBox • bleedBox • cropBox •
mediaBox • trimBox
Dimensions and boxes • artBox • bleedBox • cropBox •
mediaBox • trimBox
PDF Encryption
Links • PDF annotations are messy • 4 (or more?)
different representations • indirect objects all the way down • reversed coordinates • peculiar edge cases still not covered
Watermarking • create blank PDF (watch out for page dimensions!)
• draw links with ReportLab • cross your fingers • merge with original file
Watermarking
Merging + =
Merging • PyPDF2 can’t properly merge PDFs with links :(
• ReportLab can’t extract links from PDFs* • several hours wasted on hacking PyPDF2 • pdftk…? • pdftk! *Open Source version
Merging • apply watermark page by page to original PDF
• does not work :( • works!
Final package • encrypted PDF + media assets • digitally
signed archive • publication = push notification to devices • mobile application downloads the package and displays content
Conclusion • sadly, 3 different toolkits are necessary to get
the job done PyPDF2 ReportLab pdftk Extract links Yes No* No Draw links No Yes No Merge and preserve links No No Yes *Open Source version
ReportLab PLUS? • „ Reuse your existing pdfs in new
and exciting ways” • might just work • pricey :(
Appendix
Appendix
Credits • Businessperson designed by Devochkina Oxana from The Noun
Project • Servers designed by Daniel Campos from The Noun Project • Maru - http://sisinmaru.blog17.fc2.com/
Questions?
Thank you!