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PDF-Builder-3.024
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PDF::Builder

A Perl library to facilitate the creation and modification of PDF files

This archive contains the distribution PDF::Builder. See Changes file for the version.

Obtaining the Package

The installable Perl package may be obtained from "https://metacpan.org/pod/PDF::Builder", or via a CPAN installer package. If you install this product, only the run-time modules will be installed. Download the full .tar.gz file and unpack it (hint: on Windows, 7-Zip File Manager is an excellent tool) to get utilities, test buckets, example usage, etc.

Alternatively, you can obtain the full source files from "https://github.com/PhilterPaper/Perl-PDF-Builder", where the ticket list (bugs, enhancement requests, etc.) is also kept. Unlike the installable CPAN version, this will have to be manually installed (copy files; there are no XS compiles at this time).

Note that there are several "optional" libraries (Perl modules) used to extend and improve PDF::Builder. Read about the list of optional libraries in PDF::Builder::Docs, and decide whether or not you want to install any of them. By default, all are installed (as "recommended", so failure to install will not fail the overall PDF::Builder installation). You may choose which ones to install by modifying certain installation files with "tools/optional_update.pl".

Requirements

Perl

Perl 5.24 or higher. It will likely run on somewhat earlier versions, but the CPAN installer may refuse to install it. The reason this version was chosen was so that LTS (Long Term Support) versions of Perl going back about 6 years are officially supported (by PDF::Builder), and older versions are not supported. The intent is to not waste time and effort trying to fix bugs which are an artifact of old Perl releases.

Older Perls

If you MUST install on an older (pre 5.24) Perl, you can try the following for Strawberry Perl (Windows). NO PROMISES! Something similar MAY work for other OS's and Perl installations:

  1. Unpack installation file (.tar.gz, via a utility such as 7-Zip) into a directory, and cd to that directory
  2. Edit META.json and change 5.024000 to 5.016000 or whatever level desired
  3. Edit META.yml and change 5.024000 to 5.016000 or whatever level desired
  4. Edit Makefile.PL and change use 5.024000; to use 5.016000;, change $PERL_version from 5.024000 to 5.016000
  5. cpan .

Note that some Perl installers MAY have a means to override or suppress the Perl version check. That may be easier to use. Or, you may have to repack the edited directory back into a .tar.gz installable. YMMV.

If all goes well, PDF::Builder will be installed on your system. Whether or not it will RUN is another matter. Please do NOT open a bug report (ticket) unless you're absolutely sure that the problem is not a result of using an old Perl release, e.g., PDF::Builder is using a feature introduced in Perl 5.008 and you're trying to run Perl 5.002!

Libraries used

These libraries are available from CPAN.

REQUIRED

These libraries should be automatically installed...

OPTIONAL

These libraries are recommended for improved functionality and performance. The default behavior is to attempt to install all of them during PDF::Builder installation. If you use tools/optional_update.pl to not to install any of them, or they fail to install automatically, you can always manually install them later.

Other than an installer for standard CPAN packages (such as 'cpan' on Strawberry Perl for Windows), no other tools or manually-installed prereqs are needed (worst case, you can unpack the .tar.gz file and copy files into place yourself!). Currently there are no compiles and links (Perl extensions) done during the install process, only copying of .pm Perl module files.

Manually building

As is the usual practice with building such a package (from the command line), the steps are:

  1. perl Makefile.PL
  2. make
  3. make test
  4. make install

If you have your system configured to run Perl for a .pl/.PL file, you may be able to omit "perl" from the first command, which creates a Makefile. "make" is the generic command to run (it feeds on the Makefile), but your system may have it under a different name, such as dmake (Strawberry Perl on Windows), gmake, or nmake.

PDF::Builder does not currently compile and link anything, so gcc, g++, etc. will not be used. The build process merely copies .pm files around.

This software is Copyright (c) 2017-2022 by Phil M. Perry.

Previous copyrights are held by others (Steve Simms, Alfred Reibenschuh, et al.). See The HISTORY section of the documentation for more information.

We would like to acknowledge the efforts and contributions of a number of users of PDF::Builder (and its predecessor, PDF::API2), who have given their time to report issues, ask for new features, and have even contributed code. Generally, you will find their names listed in the Changes and/or issue tickets related to some particular item.

License

This is free software, licensed under:

The GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1, February 1999

EXCEPT for some files which are explicitly under other, compatible, licenses (the Perl License and the MIT License). You are permitted (at your option) to redistribute and/or modify this software (those portions under LGPL) at an LGPL version greater than 2.1. See INFO/LICENSE for more information on the licenses and warranty statement.

See Also

INFO/old/ also has some build and test tool files that are not currently used.

Documentation

To build the full HTML documentation (all the POD), get the full installation and go to the docs/ directory. Run buildDoc.pl --all to generate the full tree of documentation. There's a lot of additional information in the PDF::Builder::Docs module (it's all documentation).

We admit that the documentation is a bit light on "how to" task orientation. We hope to more fully address this in the future, but for now, get the full installation and look at the examples/ and contrib/ directories for sample code that may help you figure out how to do things. The installation tests in the t/ directory might also be useful to you.