PDFlib 8 Windows COM/.NET Tutorial

6 Text Output
6.1 Text Output Methods
PDFlib supports text output on several levels:
> Low-level text output with show( ) and similar functions;
> Single-line formatted text output with fit_textline( ); This function also supports text
on a path.
> Multi-line text formatted output with Textflow (fit_textflow( ) and related functions);
The Textflow formatter can also wrap text inside or outside of vector-based shapes.
> Text in tables; the table formatter supports Textline and Textflow contents in table
cells.
Low-level text output. functions like show( ) can be used to place text at a specific location
on the page, without using any formatting aids. This is recommended only for applications
with very basic text output requirements (e.g. convert plain text files to PDF),
or for applications which already have full text placement information (e.g. a driver
which converts a page in another format to PDF).
The following fragment creates text output with low-level functions:
font = p.load_font("Helvetica", "unicode", "");
p.setfont(font, 12);
p.set_text_pos(50, 700);
p.show("Hello world!");
p.continue_text("(says Java)");
Formatted single-line text output with Textlines. fit_textline( ) creates text output
which consists of single lines and offers a variety of formatting features. However, the
position of individual Textlines must be determined by the client application.
The following fragment creates text output with a Textline. Since font, encoding,
and fontsize can be specified as options, a preceding call to load_font( ) is not required:
p.fit_textline(text, x, y, "fontname=Helvetica encoding=unicode fontsize=12");
See Section 8.1, »Placing and Fitting Textlines«, page 199, for more information about
Textlines.
Multi-line text output with Textflow. fit_textflow( ) creates text output with an arbitrary
number of lines and can distribute the text across multiple columns or pages. The
Textflow formatter supports a wealth of formatting functions.
The following fragment creates text output with Textflow:
tf = p.add_textflow(tf, text, optlist);
result = p.fit_textflow(tf, llx, lly, urx, ury, optlist);
p.delete_textflow(tf);
See Section 8.2, »Multi-Line Textflows«, page 207, for more information about Textflow.
Text in tables. Textlines and Textflows can also be used to place text in table cells. See
Section 8.3, »Table Formatting«, page 227, for more information about table features.
6.1 Text Output Methods 151