Need help with developer product selection

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afalsow
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Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:28 pm

Need help with developer product selection

Post by afalsow »

I just terminated evaluation of a competitor's suite of developer products having found: 1) It appeared I required functionality not provided by the SDK and 2) lack of timely support response.

So it's time now to take a look at the Tracker line. I would like assistance (preferably directly from Tracker employees) in determining the best product (or combination) to attain my goal. I also have some specific questions I will pose here to help be in getting started.

First - some absolute requirements:

(1) Ability to embed a viewer with minimal options to user (I don't want to even display an option for opening or closing files). I'll be presenting only a very few options - mostly related to adding or manipulating annotations. But that's it. And maybe a "print" function.

(2) Ability to enumerate/manipulate all objects on an existing pdf document. Most of the documents being processed will have a stamp/watermark in the lower corners (much as Tracker's demo versions place demo logos in both upper corners). For the documents being processed, these logos ARE accessible and can be manipulated (hide/delete).

(3) Ability to add my own logo (in one corner) and username/timestamp/other info in another corner. I suspect the same process/functionality used by Tracker in placing the demo logo (top left/right corners) would be ideal for this. What function does Tracker use to do this? I looked at watermark, but isn't that really focused on a single mark per each page? And I don't see in the documentation - so far - how to add something that is called a "stamp" in the SDK I just finished evaluating. Please point me to appropriate functions.

(4) Ability to permit user to annotate with things such as a "note annotation" where the content of the note pops up/opens upon mouse rollover. User should be able to create the note in any desired position, but once saved, the annotation would be "locked".

(5) Ability to permit user to "attach" standalone files at desired position upon any page.

(6) Ability to easily create thumbnails of pages.

(7) Ability to immediately "hook" the text-select function to extract the text in the highlighted area. Ideally, I would be able to programmatically highlight (yellow, etc) the desired area and "lock" the that annotation. Also ideally, it would be desirable to have a "tag" for each annotation in which to save - invisible to user - certain info.


If someone could address these topics, I would appreciate it. Which product or products are the best choice? And what are the general (or specific) functions I should begin looking at in the documentation to accomplish the above goals and begin my learning curve?

Thank you.
Nico - Tracker Supp
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Re: Need help with developer product selection

Post by Nico - Tracker Supp »

Hi afalsow,

Thank you for your post.
Regarding your requirements:
(1) Ability to embed a viewer with minimal options to user (I don't want to even display an option for opening or closing files). I'll be presenting only a very few options - mostly related to adding or manipulating annotations. But that's it. And maybe a "print" function.
PDF-XChange Viewer ActiveX SDK or PDF-XChange Simple DLL SDK to embed a Viewer in your application.
PDF-Tools SDK:
Adding annotations: see: PXC_AddLineAnnotation, PXC_AddLaunchActionA, PXC_AddTextAnnotationA
Deleting annotations: see: PXCp_DictionaryClearValue
(2) Ability to enumerate/manipulate all objects on an existing pdf document. Most of the documents being processed will have a stamp/watermark in the lower corners (much as Tracker's demo versions place demo logos in both upper corners). For the documents being processed, these logos ARE accessible and can be manipulated (hide/delete).
PDF-Tools SDK:
Adding Watermarks: see: PXCp_AddWatermark
With PDF-Tools you can perform operations on document, page, content creation (coordinate system, text and fonts, images, drawing), some acroforms funtionality and viewing/display options.
(3) Ability to add my own logo (in one corner) and username/timestamp/other info in another corner. I suspect the same process/functionality used by Tracker in placing the demo logo (top left/right corners) would be ideal for this. What function does Tracker use to do this? I looked at watermark, but isn't that really focused on a single mark per each page? And I don't see in the documentation - so far - how to add something that is called a "stamp" in the SDK I just finished evaluating. Please point me to appropriate functions.
PDF-XChange Viewer Active X SDK:
Adding a stamp: see: SetProperty("Commenting.Stamp.Styles[0].Type", "<Stamp Name>", 0);
Please look at the PDFV_AX.pdf help file from PDF-XChange Viewer SDK.
(4) Ability to permit user to annotate with things such as a "note annotation" where the content of the note pops up/opens upon mouse rollover. User should be able to create the note in any desired position, but once saved, the annotation would be "locked".
See functions from requirement (1)
(5) Ability to permit user to "attach" standalone files at desired position upon any page.
PDF-XChange Viewer Active X SDK:
Adding attachments: see: DoDocumentVerb(docId, NULL, "AddAttachment", ...)
Attachments are not added at any desired position but at the Attachments Pane.
(6) Ability to easily create thumbnails of pages.
PDF-Tools SDK:
Add thumbnails: see: PXCp_PageSetThumbnail, PXCp_PageSetThumbnailFromFile, PXCp_PageSetThumbnailHBITMAP
(7) Ability to immediately "hook" the text-select function to extract the text in the highlighted area. Ideally, I would be able to programmatically highlight (yellow, etc) the desired area and "lock" the that annotation. Also ideally, it would be desirable to have a "tag" for each annotation in which to save - invisible to user - certain info.
Here it is not clear to me if are talking about the same thing. Higlighted text by the user is one object and annotation is other object. You may have to work to relate both together somehow. However. you can get highlighted text and also add custom tags to the pdf document.

PDF-XChange Viewer SDK:
Get selected text: see: DoVerb("Documents[0]", "GetAllSelectedText",...)
Highlight selection: see: DoVerb("Documents[0]", "HighlightSelection",...)

PDF-Tools SDK:
Add custom tags: see: PXC_SetDocumentInfoExA.
Lock Annotation:set PXC_CommonAnnotInfo structure flag to AF_Locked
If someone could address these topics, I would appreciate it. Which product or products are the best choice? And what are the general (or specific) functions I should begin looking at in the documentation to accomplish the above goals and begin my learning curve?
According to your requirements, PDF-XChange Viewer SDK and PDF-Tools SDK is what you need the most. Depending on your future needs, you may require to add more functionality that may not be in these libraries such as OCR support. I believe you could buy the PDF-XChange Pro SDK that includes everything and you would be saving money as well.

Thanks.
Sincerely,
afalsow
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Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:28 pm

Re: Need help with developer product selection

Post by afalsow »

Thank you for your response. I have downloaded the suggested product eval packages and begun reviewing help files and sample source code.
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Need help with developer product selection

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

You are welcome afalsow,

Let us know if we can assist further!

Best,
Stefan
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