PDFlib 8 Windows COM/.NET Tutorial

the following describes the runtime environment required for using PDFlib (this is taken
care of by the installation routine):
> The PDFlib COM DLL pdflib_com.dll is copied to the installation directory.
> The PDFlib COM DLL must be registered with the Windows registry. The installer uses
the self-registering PDFlib DLL to achieve the registration.
> If a licensed version of PDFlib is installed, the license key is entered in the system.
Silent install. If PDFlib must be redistributed as part of another software package, or
must be deployed on a large number of machines which are administered by tools such
as SMS, manually installing PDFlib on each machine may be cumbersome. In such cases
PDFlib can also be installed automatically without any user intervention.
The MSI installer supports silent installation. For example, you can install PDFlib
from the command line without any user intervention with the following command:
msiexec.exe /I PDFlib-XXX.dotNET-COM.msi /qn
Please review the Microsoft Windows Installer documentation for a complete list of
command line options.
Deploying the PDFlib COM on an ISP’s server. Installing software on a server hosted by
an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is usually more difficult than on a local machine, since
ISPs are often very reluctant when customers wish to install some new software. PDFlib
is very ISP-friendly since it doesn’t pollute neither the Windows directory nor the registry:
> Only a single DLL is required, which may live in an arbitrary directory as long as it is
properly registered using the regsvr32 utility.
> By default only a few private registry entries are created which are located under the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PDFlib registry hive. These entries can be manually
created if required.
> If so desired, PDFlib may even be used without any private registry entries. The user
must compensate for the entries by using appropriate calls to the set_parameter( )
function for setting the SearchPath, resourcefile, and license parameters. However,
note that the COM machinery itself will still need some registry entries in order to
install PDFlib.
See the section below for a list of files.
Redistributing the PDFlib COM component. Developers who purchased a redistributable
runtime license and wish to redistribute the PDFlib COM component along with
their own product must either ship the complete PDFlib installation and run the PDFlib
installer as part of their product’s setup process, or do all of the following:
> Integrate the files of the PDFlib installation in their own installation. The list of files
required by PDFlib can easily be determined by looking at the PDFlib installation directory,
since this is the only place where the PDFlib installer places any files.
> Take care of the necessary PDFlib registry keys. This can be accomplished by completing
the entries in the supplied registration file template pdflib.reg, and using it
during the installation process of your own product.
> pdflib_com.dll must be called for self-registration (e.g., using the regsvr32 utility).
30 Chapter 2: PDFlib Language Bindings (Edition for COM, .NET, and REALbasic)