tclMuPdf is a porting of the MuPDF framework (see at mupdf.com ), for fast and high-quality rendering of PDF pages.
History
13-dec-2016 - Version 1.0b1 (beta) released. No support for MacOS
15-dec-2016 - Version 1.0 - Support for MacOS. API unchanged, but big internal optimization for reusing opened pages (read
28-jan-2017 - Version 1.1 (Withdrawn) - new commands: fields, field, anchor, mupdf::libinfo . Added package mupdf-notk for tcl-only usage. (read the documentation). Aligned with core library MuPDF v.1.10a
23-feb-2017 - Version 1.2 (Withdrawn) with a lot of new features:
commands for extracting and searching text
commands for extracting images from PDF pages (experimental)
first steps towards PDF manipulations: you can add new signature fields, then save your changes.
many minor auxiliary commands
26-feb-2017 - Version 1.2.1 - BugFixing - replaces Version 1.1 and 1.2
a bug related to the saveImage command, introduced in 1.1 was fixed here.
Versions 1.1 and 1.2 were withdrawn
29-sep-2017 - Version 1.3 - image extraction
subcommands for extracting images, previously released as experimental.images are now official, more powerful and deeply tested with a lot of different kinds of images.
Aligned with core library MuPDF v.1.11
29-oct-2017 - Version 1.4 - portfolio & password-protected files
commands for working with PDF-portfolio (embedded files)
ability to work with password-protected PDFs.
BUG-FIX removed limit to 130 char for extracting images (full path name length)
20-Dec-2018 - Version 1.5 - field get&set, new xport options, graft & embed pages.
Working with fields: now you can also change the fields values (and bug-fixed support for Unicode characters)
Saving/exporting PDF: added -decrypt and -flatten option
Grafting & embedding pages: you can graft a page taken from a PDF, and put it over/below another pages. (watermarks, stamps,.. )
Download
Starting from version 1.2.1, you can download tclMuPdf in a pre-built package with multi-platform support or, if you only need support for a single platform, you can download a lighter package.
Note that a specific platform support (e.g. "Linux 32") is not referred to the hosting O.S. architecture, but it's referred to the architecture of the TclTk interpreter. E.g. if you have a 32-bit TclTk interpreter running on a 64-bit Linux, you need the tclMuPdf package for linux-x32.
Version 1.5 (October 2018)
[L1 ] FULL (Win 32/64, Linux 32/64, MacOS) (Warning: 33MB)
Package mupdf integrates the MuPDF framework in Tcl. The focus of MuPDF is on speed, small code size, and high-quality anti-aliased rendering. The main goal of this integration is to generate images of the pdf pages, in a .png format, or directly in a Tk's photo image type. Thanks to its speed mupdf can be used for building interactive pdf-viewers with high-quality and real-time zooming. mupdf is a binary package, distributed in a multi-platform bundle, i.e. it can be used on
Windows 32/64 bit
Linux 32/64 bit
MacOS 64 bit
Just an example to get the flavor of how to use mupdf:
# open a file and save 1st page as a .png file
package require mupdf
set pdf [mupdf::open /mydir/sample.pdf]
set page [$pdf getpage 0] ;# 0 is the 1st page
$page savePNG /mydir/page0.png
mupdf::close $pdf
MuPDF with and without Tk
Starting from version 1.1, you can also run mupdf from a tclsh interpreter, without loading Tk. The following command
package require mupdf-notk
can be used in a tclsh interpreter to load the package without requiring Tk support. You will be still able to save images as PNG files, but of course some subcommands related to Tk won't be available (e.g saveImage ) The command
package require mupdf
loads the full package (and requires Tk).
mupdf Commands
mupdf supports the following commands:
mupdf::openfilename ?-passwordpassword?
This is the main command: it opens the PDF-file filename and returns a pdfHandle to be used in subsequent operations. If filename is password-protected, you may specify a password adding the option -password; if option -password is not specified, mupdf will ask for a password.] Read more about it in the section Working with Password Protected Files.
pdfHandlefullname
return the fully normalized pathname of the pdf-file.
pdfHandleauthentication
return the current authentication mode for pdfHandle. It may be none (no auth required), user (opened with user's password), owner (opened with owner's password).
pdfHandleversion
return the document's internal PDF-version.
pdfHandlenpages
return the number of pages.
pdfHandlegetpagen
return a pageHandle to be used in subsequent operations. Note that first page is page 0. Note that if the requested page is currently opened, getpage reuses the handle of the opened page.
pdfHandleanchoranchorName
return the location of anchorName as list of 3 numbers:
a page number ( -1 if anchorName is not found )
x displacement
y displacement x and y are hints for displaying the page: they represent the displacement of the top-left corner of the page relative to the top-left corner of the window.
pdfHandleopenedpages
return the list of all pageHandles currently opened related to pdfHandle
pdfHandlecloseallpages
close all currently opened pages related to pdfHandle
pdfHandlefields
return a list of field-records. Each field-record is a list of three elements:
the field-name
the field-type (pushbutton, radiobutton, checkbox, text, combobox, listbox, signature or unknown)
the field-value Note that for a signature field, if a signature is present the returned field-value is simply the fixed string <<signature>>. Warning: field-names with accented characters or in general with non-ASCII charaters may require a special care when used. See the section Notes about field-names with accented letters for details.
pdfHandlefieldfieldname
return the field's value, or raise an error if fieldname is not a valid field. Warning: field-names with accented characters or in general with non-ASCII charaters may require a special care when used. See the section Notes about field-names with accented letters for details.
pdfHandlesignatures
return a list of signature field-records . Each field-record is a list of two elements:
the field-name
the field-value Empty signature fields (blanc signatures) have a field-value equal to "" (empty string). Currently, filled signature fields are simply denoted with the fixed string <<signature>>.
pdfHandlehaschanges
return 1 if pdfHandle has been changed, otherwise 0.
pdfHandlecanbesavedincrementally
return 1 if pdfHandle can be saved in incremental-mode, otherwise 0.
pdfHandleexportfilename
save the current document and its changes in an alternative filename. Note that the target filename should be different from the original pdf-file related with pdfHandle and in general, different from the name of any pdf-file currently opened in this process. When a pdfHandle is closed (see mupdf::close), all the changes will be saved to its original pdf-file. (see also mupdf::quit for closing without saving changes).
extract the i-th embedded file. ( i >= 0 ) If option -dir is not specified, the embedded file is saved in the current directory. If option -as is not specified, embedded file is saved with its original name
search the string needle starting from page-number pagenum (default is page 0) and returning up to hits results (default is 10). The result of search subcommand is a list of page-positions. Each page-positions is a list of two elements:
the page-number
a list with the 4 coords of the box enclosing the searched needle Next results can be retrived with the search..more subcommand.
pdfHandlesearch..more ?-maxhits?
return a list of the next hits elements matching the last given needle. The result of search..more subcommand is a list of page-positions similar to the list returned by search.
pageHandlesize
return the physical size of the page as a list of two decimal numbers. Note that page size is expressed in points, i.e. 1/72 inch.
pageHandledocref
return a reference to the related pdf-document as a pdfHandle
render the page in a .png file named filename. With a default -zoom factor equal to 1.0, a page whose size is W x H points is rendered as a raster image of W x H pixels. If -zoom is specified, the resulting image size is scaled by a factor of zoom. By default the whole page is rendered; the -from option, allows you to render only a given rectangular area of the page. x0y0 are the coords of the top-left corner and x1y1 are for the bottom-right corner. These coords must be expressed in terms of the physical size of the page, i.e in points Note that if these coords lies outside of the page, only the intersection of this area with the page area is rendered.
...
set page [$pdf getpage 0] ;# 0 is the 1st page
lassign [$page size] dx dy
# save just the upper half of the page
$page savePNG /mydir/page0.png -zoom 2.25 -from 0 0 $dx [expr $dy/2]
mupdf::close $pdf
render the page in an existing Tk's photo image. The width and/or height of image are unchanged if the user has set on it an explicit image width or height (with the -width and/or -height configuration options, respectively). About the -zoom and -from options, the same rules for the savePNG apply. Option -to allows you to place the resulting raster image at the x0y0 coords of the destination image. By default, is -to0.00.0 NOTE: this command is not available with the package mupdf-notk.
pageHandleaddsigfieldfieldnamex0y0x1y1
add a blank signature field in a rectangular box at coords x0y0x1y1. fieldname must be unique among the existing field names.
search the string needle in the current page and return up to hitspositions (default is 10). By default search starts from top of the page. If you need to find then next hits, use option -fromtopfalse. The result of search subcommand is a list of positions. Each positions is a list with the 4 coords of the box enclosing the searched needle.
pageHandleimageslist ?-idimageID?
return a list of all the images contained in the page referred by pageHandle. The result of imageslist subcommand is a list of image-records. Each image-record is a list of six elements:
image's bit per component (number of color components may be inferred from colorspace)
mask-flag : 1 means that the image has a pixel-mask (i.e. some transparent pixels) If option -id is present, the resulting list is limited to the image-record for imageID.
if option -id is specified, extract and save the image referred by imageID (see imageslist). If option -id is missing, all the images contained in a page are extracted and saved. If option -dir is not specified, images are saved in the current directory. If option -as is not specified, images are saved with a name derived from the default mupdf::imagenamesformat (see below), otherwise images are saved as pattern (for pattern rules see below for mupdf::imagenamesformat). if option -transparency is true, save the (semi)transparent pixels (if any), otherwise transparent pixels (if any) are rendered as white pixels. extract returns a list of extracted-records. Each extracted-record is a list of three elements:
image-ID (unique for each page)
image-name (pdf page's internal name)
saved filename (empty string if the image was skipped (unknow format...))
mupdf::imagenamesformat ?pattern?
a pattern is a parametric filename specification similar to the format specification used by the C printf function. If pattern is not specified, return the currently defined default pattern. If pattern is specified, set the default pattern. When the "pageHandleimagesextract ..." command is called, all the images are saved with a filename based on a pattern (This pattern can be explicit, if option -as is present, or it can be implicit, based on the default mupdf::imagenamesformat). a pattern is a a simple filename specification (just the base-name, since the extension of the extracted images (png, jpg, ...) is automatically determined.) with zero or more special symbols like the following ones:
%p : page number (first page is 1)
%P : total number of pages
%i : image number - images in a page are numbered starting from 1
%I : total number of images (in the current page) Special symbols may also be written with a padding-specification like %5P; this notation means the the symbol %P should be padded as a 5-character string with leading '0's. If more than one image is extracted in a single operation, and pattern does not contain the %i symbol (the image number), then -%i is implicitely appended in order to avoid a filename collision. Assuming that the current page is the page 123 (i.e the 124th page), the following command
$pageHandle images extract -as "IMG_%5p"
will generate IMG_00124-1.jpg, IMG_00124-2.jpg ..... (note: the file extension may be different)
$pageHandle images extract -as "Z%5p(%2i)"
will generate Z00124(01).jpg, Z00124(02).jpg ..... (note: the file extension may be different)
mupdf::closehandle
if handle refers to a pageHandle, close the page. if handle refers to a pdfHandle, close the pdf (updating its original pdf-file) and all its opened pages;
mupdf::quitpdfHandle
close the pdfHandle without saving the changes.
mupdf::isobjecthandle
return 1 if handle is a valid reference to a pdf or a page.
mupdf::typehandle
return document or page if handle is a valid reference, else raise an error.
mupdf::documents
return a list of the currently opened pdfHandles
mupdf::documentnames
return a list of pdf-filenames currently opened (fully normalized filenames).
mupdf::isopenfilename
check if filename is among the currently opened pdf-files.
mupdf::cli_passwordhelper ?helperProc?
get/set the helper procedure for shell-like applications. If helperProc is ', then the default helper is re-set. See section Working with Password Protected Files'.
mupdf::tk_passwordhelper ?helperProc?
get/set the helper procedure for applications with a Tk graphical interface. If helperProc is ', then the default helper is re-set. See section Working with Password Protected Files'.
mupdf::libinfo
return specific attributes of the underlying MuPdf libray as a list of keywords and their values. The provided keywords are:
version
The version of the underlying MuPDf library
..more to come ..
Working with Password Protected Files
You can open a password-protected PDF in a non-interactive or in an interactive way. With the first way, non-interactive way, you must provide in advance a password
set pdf [mupdf::open book.pdf -password "123open"]
If password is wrong then an error is raised; other than looking at the error message, you can check for the errorcode: it should be MUPDF WRONGPASSWORD. Note that there's no distinction between owner's password and user's password; if you provide the right owner's password, the PDF is opened in owner-mode, if you provide the right user's password, the PDF is opened in user-mode. You can check if PDF has been opened in user-mode or owner-mode by calling the authentication command.
set pdf [mupdf::open book.pdf -password "123open"]
# if we are here, it means that password was OK
set mode [$pdf authentication]
# "none" means that book.pdf was not password-protected
# "user" means that the supplyed password was the user's password
# "owner" means ...
The second way , interactive way, does not require to provide an explicit password; if the PDF is password-protected, mupdf will ask for a password. Depending on the nature of your application (with or without Tk), mupdf will select and call a predefined (yet customizable) helper procedure. These predefined, built-in procedures can be changed with the mupdf::cli_passwordhelper or mupdf::tk_passwordhelper command.
# template for a (shell-like) password-helper procedure
proc mypswdhelper {filename} {
... ask for a password ....
.... get the password ....
....
return $password
}
mupdf::cli_passwordhelper mypswdhelper
# template for a (GUI) password-helper procedure
proc myGUIpswdhelper {filename} {
... raise some popup ...
... ask for a password ....
.... get the password ...
.... close the popup
return $password
}
mupdf::tk_passwordhelper myGUIpswdhelper
Removing protection from a password protected files
If you open a password-protected file and export it, then the resulting PDF is saved without pasword.
Notes about field-names with accented letters
Field-names returned by [pdfHandlefields] are not standard (Unicode) strings; they are binary string. For 'good plain' field names like "City", there is no difference: the returned binary-string and the literal (Unicode) string "City" are byte-by-byte identical" Now let's consider a field-name like this "Città" (italian term for "City"): the returned field name, even if it is represented like "Città", is not comparable with the literal Unicode string "Città", just because the former byte-array is made of 5 bytes (plus a '\0' string-terminator), whereas the unicode string is made of 6 bytes (plus a '\0' string-terminator). This may produce strange results when comparing these values, and in particular cases, it may cause the field subcommand to produce unexpected results. Let's try with this interactive example:
...
set fields [$pdf fields]
# let's suppose the 0-th returned record is about the field "Città" ....
# try to get the field value:
set value [$pdf field Città] ;# --> error !!!
# Workaround: let's take back the fieldname from the $fields list ...
set fieldname [lindex $fields 0 0] ;# field name is the 0-th elem of the 0-th record
puts "$fieldname" ;# --> Città
set value [$pdf field $fieldname] ;# --> ... ok
LImitations
Full support for portfolio management is still incomplete; commands for adding/removing/reordering embedded files will require a more robust mupdf-core implementation. Support for password management is still incomplete; currently you can open password-protected PDFs, remove passwords, but there's no way to add/change passwords.