PDFlib 8 Windows COM/.NET Tutorial

8 Text and Table Formatting
8.1 Placing and Fitting Textlines
The function fit_textline( ) for placing a single line of text on a page offers a wealth of
formatting options. The most important options will be discussed in this section using
some common application examples. A complete description of these options can be
found in the PDFlib API Reference. Most options for fit_textline( ) are identical to those of
fit_image( ). Therefore we will only use text-related examples here; it is recommended to
take a look at the examples in Section 7.3, »Placing Images and imported PDF Pages«,
page 192, for an introduction to image formatting.
The examples below demonstrate only the relevant call of fit_textline( ), assuming
that the required font has already been loaded and set in the desired font size.
fit_textline( ) uses a hypothetical text box to determine the positioning of the text:
the width of the text box is identical to the width of the text, and the box height is identical
to the height of capital letters in the font. The text box can be modified by the
matchbox option which defines the text box.
In the examples below, the coordinates of the reference point are supplied as x, y parameters
of fit_textline( ). The fitbox for text lines is the area where text will be placed. It
is defined as the rectangular area specified with the x, y parameters of fit_textline( ) and
appropriate options (boxsize, position, rotate). The fitbox can be reduced to the left/right
or top/bottom with the margin option.
Cookbook Code samples regarding text output issues can be found in the text_output category of the
PDFlib Cookbook.
8.1.1 Simple Textline Placement
Positioning text at the reference point. By default, the text will be placed with the lower
left corner at the reference point. However, in this example we want to place the text
with the bottom centered at the reference point. The following code fragment places
the text box with the bottom centered at the reference point (30, 20).
p.fit_textline(text, 30, 20, "position={center bottom}");
Figure 8.1 illustrates centered text placement. Similarly, you can use the position option
with another combination of the keywords left, right, center, top, and bottom to place
text at the reference point.
Fig. 8.1
Centered text
y
Kraxi
y
Kraxi
Fig. 8.2
Simple text with
orientation west
x
x
8.1 Placing and Fitting Textlines 199