iText in Action

Creating and Manipulating PDF
Bruno Lowagie
  • October 2006
  • ISBN 9781932394795
  • 688 pages

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Say you need a tool to add dynamic or interactive features to a PDF file and you decide to search on Google for "Java PDF." What do you think you'd find? Why, at the top of the page you'd find "iText," of course. A leading tool for programmatic creation and manipulation of PDF documents, iText is an open source Java library developed and maintained by Bruno Lowagie, the author of this book, with the help of many contributors.

While at the entry level iText is easy to learn, developers find they soon need its more advanced features. Written by the master himself, iText in Action now offers an introduction and a practical guide to the subject—you will gain a sound understanding of the Portable Document Format and how to do interesting and useful things with PDF using iText.

iText in Action introduces iText and lowers the learning curve to its advanced features. Its numerous, valuable examples unlock many of the secrets hidden in Adobe's PDF Reference. The examples are in Java but they can be easily adapted to .NET using one of iText's .NET ports: iTextSharp (C#) or iText.NET (J#).

what's inside

How to

  • Serve PDF to a browser
  • Generate dynamic documents from XML files or databases
  • Use PDF's many interactive features
  • Add bookmarks, page numbers, watermarks, etc.
  • Split, concatenate, and manipulate PDF pages
  • Automate filling out of PDF forms
  • Add digital signatures to a PDF file
  • And much more

about the author

Bruno Lowagie is the original developer and one of the current maintainers of iText. He works for Ghent University and lives in Ghent, Belgium with his wife and two sons.

I've been using iText for over a year, but I still learnt an awful lot while reading this book.

Stephen Kitt, JavaLobby

Thorough and complete ... will be a long running, valuable resource for iText and PDF.

Alan Dennis, Software Architect, MyFamily.com

One of the best technical books I have ever read! Great work!

Oliver Zeigermann, Technical Trainer, CoreMedia AG

I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Doug James, eReporting Team Lead, Benefitfocus.com, Inc.

Impressive! It provides depth without all the noise.

Justin Lee, President, Antwerkz Inc.

Valuable to any developer using PDF.

Stuart Caborn, Consultant, Thoughtworks