BFO unveils Java PDF library

LONDON, ENGLAND: Big Faceless Organization (BFO) has released version 2.10.1 of their Java PDF Library, featuring vast improvements to speed and memory when reading PDF’s.

This latest offering is a bugfix to 2.10. The speed improvements can be attributed to a switch from a single to a multi-threaded architecture and use of the java.nio where possible.

"These changes result from problems we were having with a single 500MB PDF file", said CTO Mike Bremford. "The debugging process was taking so long we got fed up and spent two months profiling the library. The end-result is a big improvement for most users, and for certain use-cases like digitally signing large documents the memory footprint can be an order of magnitude smaller".

The PDF Library reads and writes PDFs up to version 1.7 (Acrobat 8.0) and boasts a dynamic range of features including:

    * Transparent Unicode support - create documents in Arabic, Russian or Japanese as easily as English.

    * TrueType and Type1 fonts, with subsetting for smaller files. Great for OCR

    * PDF Encryption, for password-protected documents (40 and 128 bit RC4 or AES)

    * Embed JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF or java.awt.Image images, or add Barcodes directly to the PDF

    * Use Spot colors, calibrated ICC profiles and other advanced colorspace

    * Add HTML-style Hyperlinks to text or images

    * Process 1000+ words a second with kerning, ligatures, justification and "curly quotes" for legibility

    * Simplify complex document creation by defining and applying "Styles"

    * Full support for PDF features like bookmarks, compression and document meta-information

    * Non-linear creation of documents - pages can be created and edited in any order

The new release also boasts the Swing Java PDF Viewer, now localized into a number of languages, including Japanese, Chinese, French, German and Spanish.