DLI Implementation and Reference Guide - Datalogics

9.2 DLI Implementation and Reference Guide
Overview of Forms
Concepts and Facilities: Guide to the DL Pager Composition System
Forms, in this sense, are predefined content that may be placed into a document many
times. A form’s content will be included in the PDF or PostScript document only once,
but it may be imaged in the document any number of times. Defining forms is a
powerful means of reducing the size of a document. It also considerably reduces the
time needed to create a document.
Forms Structure
A form is represented in DLI as a structure, DLPDFFORM. Any number of forms may
be defined, on a per-document basis: if the same form is needed in multiple
documents, multiple copies of it must be created.
Forms are tracked within the document structure, and all forms for a document are
destroyed when the document is destroyed. Pointers to forms become invalid when
the document is destroyed and must not be used after that time.
The content of a form may be arbitrarily complex. Forms may contain images as well
as other forms.