http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/ Tips, Tricks and News from the Big Faceless Organization http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/05/27/jpeg2000_java_and_pdf.html <p> The JPEG 2000 compression algorithm was designed in 2000 as a successor to the venerable JPEG algorithm, which dates back to 1992. It's designed to compress &quot;continuous tone&quot; images such as photographs, and supports both a lossy (like JPEG) and a lossless format. We covered a bit on image compression in <a href="http://bfo.co.uk/blog/2008/07/31/converting_pdf_to_tiff_png_and_jpeg.html">in a previous article</a>. </p> <p> Adobe added support for JPEG 2000 compressed images in Acrobat 5.0, (calling it JPX compression), and it's becoming more and more common to find PDF Documents containing photographic images compressed with this algorithm. </p><p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/05/27/jpeg2000_java_and_pdf.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/05/01/using_version_2_0_of_the_bfo_graph_library_with_bfo_report_generator.html BFO Report Generator by default includes the BFO Graph Library, but the older version 1.0 library. While this is adequate for many users, people may want to use the new graphs and features available in version 2.0 of the Graph library. This article will show how to achieve this.<p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/05/01/using_version_2_0_of_the_bfo_graph_library_with_bfo_report_generator.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/03/25/funnel_charts.html With the release of version 2.4 of the BFO Graph library it is now possible to create 'funnel charts' This blog article will explain how to use the new chart type and provide examples of the different styles that can be created.<p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/03/25/funnel_charts.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/02/20/creating_pdf_a_documents_with_the_bfo_library.html PDF/A is a standardised subset of PDF used for long-term archive storage. The PDF/A format ensures that documents can be correctly rendered hundreds of years from now in the absence of standard frameworks we take for granted today. Read more to find out how to author PDF/A documents with the BFO PDF library.<p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/02/20/creating_pdf_a_documents_with_the_bfo_library.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/01/26/gotchas_when_reading_and_writing_pdf_to_files.html Reading and writing PDF documents to and from the same disk file can have unexpected consequences. This article covers what to watch out for if you do this, and details a few ways to get around the problems it can cause, including the new features added in 2.11.2 for this problem.<p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/01/26/gotchas_when_reading_and_writing_pdf_to_files.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/01/22/bfo_releases_java_pdf_library_2_11_2.html <p> BFO have released a new version of their Java PDF Library. </p><p> Version 2.11.2 fixes an issue with IBM versions of Java that was introduced in the previous release - a change of obfuscator clashed with a bug in some releases of the JRE supplied with Websphere. There are fixes for Customers reading and writing PDFs to the same File, a memory leak in the Viewer has been fixed, and a number of bugs have been fixed, including a Swing screen corruption issue that sometimes occurred on Windows. </p><p> The full changelog is available <a href="http://big.faceless.org/viewtext.jsp?url=products/pdf/docs/CHANGELOG.txt&title=Big+Faceless+PDF+Library+Changelog">here</a>, and the new release is available to download at <a href="http://bfo.co.uk/products/download.jsp">http://bfo.co.uk/products/download.jsp</a> </p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/01/05/new_features_for_java_applets.html Sun have rewritten the Java browser plugin in Java 6 Update 10 to address many of the issues that people have experienced with deploying Java applets, and to add new features such as dragging applets out of the browser. We have updated the PDF Viewer Applet to take advantage of these features, and we'll show how you can update your own deployment of the PDF Viewer Applet, or any other applet, to do the same.<p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2009/01/05/new_features_for_java_applets.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/11/13/bfo_releases_java_pdf_library_2_10_6_and_report_generator_1_1_40.html <p> BFO have simultaneously released new versions of their Java PDF Library and Java Report Generator tools. </p><p> The 2.10.6 release of the PDF Library includes a vastly improved JavaScript environment with numerous bug fixes for the Library and the PDF Viewer extension. Version 1.1.40 brings the Report Generator up to speed with the improvements made to the PDF Library with the last few releases. The Report Generator is built on Graph Library 1.1.6 and PDF Library 2.10.6. Please see the <a href="http://big.faceless.org/viewtext.jsp?url=products/pdf/docs/CHANGELOG.txt&title=Big+Faceless+PDF+Library+Changelog">PDF Library Changelog</a> for more details.</a> </p><p> Download the latest releases from <a href="http://bfo.co.uk/products/download.jsp">BFO website</a> </p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/10/14/big_faceless_releases_java_pdf_library_2_10_4.html <p> BFO are pleased to announce the 2.10.4 release of their PDF library. Several months in the making, it contains a large number of changes, mostly under the hood. </p><p> For the end user, the primary new features will be the new single column display in the Viewer; improvements to allow the library to work with XFA-only PDFs and the addition of the new USPS "IntelligentMail" BarCode. There was also a large rewrite of the font-subsystem, improving the ability of the library to render unusually constructed PDFs and paving the way for future enhancements. The full list of changes is in the <a href="http://big.faceless.org/viewtext.jsp?url=products/pdf/docs/CHANGELOG.txt&title=Big+Faceless+PDF+Library+Changelog">PDF Library Changelog</a> </p><p> As always, the latest release is at avilable for download at the <a href="http://bfo.co.uk/products/download.jsp">BFO website</a> </p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/08/06/bfo_technical_support_second_to_none_says_top_adobe_provider.html <p> BFO are pleased to add <a href="http://www.4point.com">4Point</a>, the world's largest Adobe consulting practice, to its enviable client base.</p> <p>A spokesman for 4Point said, "We used (BFO's) PDF Library to meet our client's need for rich inter-document navigation. With (the) PDF Library we were able to stitch together flat PDFs, create a set of inter-document linking bookmarks, and hyperlink inter-documents via existing and built table of contents and index pages. We chose Big Faceless' PDF Library because it is feature-rich and user-friendly—the API is very coherent and intuitive."</p> <p>For more information read the full <a href="http://big.faceless.org/press.jsp#56">press release</a> </p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/07/31/converting_pdf_to_tiff_png_and_jpeg.html We're asked some questions more than others at BFO, and one of the most common concerns conversion of a PDF to a bitmap image format - typically TIFF, but sometimes JPEG or another format. This process is called &quot;rasterization&quot; and while it's very easy to do with the &quot;extended plus viewer&quot; version of our <a href="http://bfo.co.uk/products/pdf">PDF Library</a>, it's worth going over in more detail.<p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/07/31/converting_pdf_to_tiff_png_and_jpeg.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/07/17/linearized_pdf.html <p> The 2.10.3 release of the <a href="/products/pdf">PDF library</a> adds support for writing &quot;Linearized&quot; PDF documents, sometimes called &quot;Web Optimized&quot; or &quot;Fast Web View&quot; enabled. This feature has been a part of the PDF specification since Acrobat 3.0, but it's poorly understood even by developers. </p> <p>The idea behind linearization is faster display of PDF documents downloaded from the web. It does this by arranging the document structure in a specific way, and adding &quot;hints tables&quot; which specify the position in the file of certain objects. </p><p><a href="http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/07/17/linearized_pdf.html">Read more...</a></p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/07/15/big_faceless_releases_pdf_library_2_10_3.html <p> BFO have released a major update to their PDF Library. The 2.10.3 release has a number of significant improvements across the board: for the first time the PDF library can now write Linearized, or "web-optimized" PDF's, which are optimized for faster display in a web browser. Text extraction has been rewritten and is now significantly faster and more accurate. A bug causing higher than necessary memory use with the PDFReader has been squashed, and there are a number of speed and stability improvements. The Swing PDF Viewer has some very significant stability improvements, and now includes the ability to search and select text from a PDF. </p><p> The new release is recommended for all our customers, and is available for download now at <a href="/">http://bfo.co.uk</a>. See the <a href="/viewtext.jsp?url=products/pdf/docs/CHANGELOG.txt&amp;title=PDF%20Library%20Change%20Log">PDF Library Changelog</a> for more details. </p> http://big.faceless.org:80/blog/2008/07/07/the_bfo_blog_arrives.html <p> Hello and welcome to the latest section of BFO's website, the "BFO Blog". We'll be using this section to disseminate useful bits of information that we think our customers might want to hear, but that don't really fit anywhere else. </p> <p> The PDF specification runs to 1300 pages, and with the recent release of Acrobat 9.0 that's about to increase still further. Over the coming months we'll try to sift some gems from this rubble, as well as offering optimization tips, tricks, hacks and ideas on squeezing the most out of both our products and Java. Stay tuned. </p>