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Ask HN: Whould you be interested in an PDF customization API?
We are building an API which allow to integrate some external data (POST request) to an existing design. That allow to integrate easily web2print feature in any website.
- frankydp 13y agoHow would this be different from the multiple products already in the market? FPDFI, PDFLIB and Zend_PDF wkhtmltopdf flying-saucer
- trez 13y ago- No library to integrate (ie langage independant and you don't have to change your code) whereas actual product requires to use java, .net or python - easy customization with common technologies (CSS, JSON) whereas you have to use complex XML configuration with actual product - Per usage pricing instead of expensive license - Out-of-the-box widget to integrate in your website which adapt itself to the requested data
- trez 13y agoAll theses library are about creating a PDF from scratch whereas our API should allow to customize an already existing PDF
- frankydp 13y agoEditing draw stream is creation. Once you parse the original the only real way to update the original stream is mark invalid and push in the updated stream. If you are only looking to edit xmp/meta/comments then you could possibly use an edit or amend but would still need one of the pdf libraries to post process.
- doodku 13y agoI can just emit PS and use ps2pdf. PS is just text, so any language can do that. There's already an API - it's called Unix pipes!
- trez 13y agonever heard of that ;) Indeed, manual processing is an option if you are ok to add some code any time a user want a new PDF design. That's not a really scalable process if your number of PDFs is increasing. It's also not a viable option for less technical users
- doodku 13y agoI'm sure it's computationally equivalent to what you're doing - it's a function from some input data and some template to a PDF file - so I don't follow your thesis that it would be less scalable (for some definition of scalable that you don't give). You could even use some tech like Handlebars to do it with Node.js, so using your existing stack.
- trez 13y agoBy scalable I mean accessible to a large number of user because that won't require too specific skills. My assumption is CSS is a more common skills than linux commands