About PDF Creator Pilot 3.9

Hi, everybody! My name is Vitaly Shibaev. I am one of the developers of the PDF Creator library. In my first note, I want to talk specifically about version 3.9.

In my opinion, the most important improvement in this version is how it renders texts. Any kind of text renders correctly, as searchable and clipboard compatible. In general, the library generates smaller output files, especially when the CJK fonts are used.

We also got rid of memory leaks, and along the way we have seriously refactored the code. As a result, the library works faster and is more stable.

Instead of using BoundsChecker to catch the leaks, we used great two code files that actually saved us. Just include them in your project, by adding “#include “mmgr.h”” in a header file, and you’re all set. After that, in the same location as the application executable, three log files will be created (memleaks.log, memory.log and memreport.log). The “memleaks.log” file will report any and all leaks. When you turn on the “memreport.log” in “mmgr.cpp” (by default it’s turned off), it provides detailed reports about all memory allocations and deallocations (when, how much, etc.). I would recommend mmgr to all C++ developers.

There are some more important improvements in the library. It now renders CMYK JPEG images. This feature is vital for users with special image quality requirements, especially in pre-press.

Other improvements are related to interactive forms and annotations. First, file sizes have been optimized. In most cases, their size will be 2-3 times smaller than previously. Second, we’ve improved the rendering of Unicode symbols.

We’ve added the Caption property to the radio button descriptions. Caption is now a part of the control. It’s coded like this:

PDF.PDFPAGE_CreateControl_RadioButton “rb_group”, 0, 0, 100, 20
PDF.PDFANNOTATION_Caption = “Place some text here”

Revealing some of our secrets, we’ve reorganized and improved our code in version 3.9. We added some unit tests (not for all the code yet). The process of choosing a proper unit test environment for C++ was of special interest. It would be a good topic for the next time.

Vitaly Shibaev