[Tfug] Scripting PDF's

Bexley Hall bexley401 at yahoo.com
Wed Jul 10 04:50:56 MST 2013


Hi Yan,

On 7/9/2013 11:11 PM, Yan wrote:
> (When viewed in at least Adobe Acrobat,) PDFs support JavaScript. It's

Yes.

> quite a nuisance, due to the number of security vulnerabilities it leads
> to, but it's a fact of life. You can find more information here:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9219807/using-javascript-inside-a-pdf.
> There are a few good links there, including some howtos and a document
> reference. Other viewers support (possibly a subset of) JavaScript as well,
> but you'll probably have to test them to make sure.

So far, all of the examples I have encountered are "text-centric".
E.g., programmatically searching/replacing/inserting/etc. text
based on actions/input from the user.  "Smart *Forms*".  Similar
to the "order form" example I mentioned previously.

But, I haven't been able to find anything that addresses creating
*graphic* content, on-the-fly.

E.g., I can play a canned audio snippet.  Or, an animation/movie.
But, I can't "draw an X" (or, a tic-tac-toe board) with any sort
of JS commands I've seen, so far.

I'll have to keep digging.  I can't believe they would overlook
such a useful feature...

--don




More information about the tfug mailing list