DrawCapturedPage and "AutoRotation"

Hi Thomas,

please explain what you want. I understand only, that there is a PDF1 in A4 portrait, which has pages with a free area for pages from PDF2, which are A4 landscape. What is the goal? Clear is, you want to get a Page of PDF2 in smaller size on a reserved page of PDF1. What automatism do you expect or really get?

Want you while drawing PDF2-Page onto a Page of PDF1 leave the orientation as is or not?

Please show a code snippet and the both used PDFs to answer your question.

Cheers,

Werner

Hi Thomas,

I'm rather sure, that there is any kind of rotate-command in one of your PDFs. Here is my test, which shows what with normal PDFs happens:

var
  pid: integer;
  pw, ph: double;
begin
  QP := TQuickPDF.Create;
  QP.UnlockKey({$I PDFkey.inc});
  QP.NewDocument;
  QP.SetMeasurementUnits(1);
  QP.SetOrigin(0);
  QP.SetPageDimensions(210, 297);
  QP.DrawText(25, 250, 'Portrait-Page');
  QP.SetLineColor(0, 0, 1);            // blue
  QP.SetLineWidth(1);
  QP.DrawBox(1, 296, 208, 295, 0);     // borderline
  QP.SaveToFile('PDF1_Portrait.pdf');

  QP.NewDocument;
  QP.SetMeasurementUnits(1);
  QP.SetOrigin(0);
  QP.SetPageDimensions(297, 210);
  QP.DrawText(150, 100, 'Landscape-Page');
  QP.SetLineColor(1, 0, 0);            // red
  QP.SetLineWidth(1);
  QP.DrawBox(1, 209, 295, 208, 0);     // borderline
  QP.SaveToFile('PDF2_Landscape.pdf');

  QP.Free; // to forget all, no sideeffects possible

  QP := TQuickPDF.Create;
  QP.UnlockKey({$I PDFkey.inc});
  QP.MergeFiles('PDF1_Portrait.pdf', 'PDF2_Landscape.pdf', 'PDF_mixed.pdf');

  // now the imposition
  QP.LoadFromFile('PDF_mixed.pdf', '');
  QP.SelectPage(2);
  pw := QP.PageWidth;          // after capture we can't ask for this
  ph := QP.PageHeight;
  pid := QP.CapturePage(2);    // get the landscape-page

  QP.SelectPage(1);            // the page where we want to put the captured page down
  QP.DrawCapturedPage(pid, 0, ph, pw, ph); // without scaling the landscape is clipped
  QP.SaveToFile('PDF_done.pdf');
  QP.Free;

Because I was thinking in this direction, I did ask for the PDFs, you are using. In them is anything disturbing you.

More if needed next year.

Cheers,
Werner

Hi Thomas,

we are on the right way. As I did guess, in the landscape-PDF is one /Rotate-command in the object, which describes the contents of the PDF.

But step by step to understand the problem. A first search for Mediabox shows:

/MediaBox[0 0 595.22 842]

that is a A4-portrait in points. Therefore the PDF is primary build as portrait. To bring it in the wished landscape-orientation, there is a few bytes later this:

... >>/Rotate 90/Type/Page>>

If you use a good editor like notepad++ change it carefully (don't change the length of anything and beware all binarys as they are):

... >>/Rotate 00/Type/Page>>

Proof: In this form Adobe Reader shows it as portrait, as it really is.

Anyway there goes the rotate lost during capture, thats because subject of the rotation seems to be a page, but if we draw it as captured, it becomes to be a part of a page , what means no own rotation. Then it is drawn as constructed - portrait. So I think about this, explaining the automatic. It may be good and it may disturb, depending on the PDF-Quality.

We may bring all in correct state with a short code:

var
  rotation: integer;
...
  rotation := QP.PageRotation; // the page of interest has to be selected
  if (rotation<>0)
  then begin
    QP.DrawText(1,150, Format('Rotation %d',[rotation])); // only to see this as test
    QP.RotatePage(rotation);             // realize the defined rotation
  end;
  pw := QP.PageWidth;          // after capture we can't ask for this
  ph := QP.PageHeight;
  pid := QP.CapturePage(...    // the now rotated sourcepage

With asking for the rotation we get informed about the build in rotation-statement. With RotatePage this is really performed, then we get the better formed PDF and get the correct values for pagedimensions. Read for this carefully the QP-ReferenceGuide at p. 508.

With the value of rotation and the relation between pagewith and pageheight, you should be able to handle all PDFs as you want and draw them with the right rotation-value.


Cheers,

Werner


Edited by edvoigt - 01 Jan 12 at 6:24PM