Poppler (software)

The project was started by Kristian Høgsberg with two goals: to provide PDF rendering functionality as a shared library, to centralize maintenance effort and to go beyond the goals of Xpdf, and to integrate with functionality provided by modern operating systems. By the version 0.18 release in 2011, the poppler library represented a complete implementation of ISO 32000-1, the PDF format standard, and was the first major free PDF library to support its forms (only Acroforms but not full XFA forms) and annotations features. The name Poppler comes from "The Problem with Popplers," an episode of the animated series Futurama. ==Applications==

Notable free software applications using Poppler to render PDF documents include: ==Features==

Poppler can use two back-ends for drawing PDF documents, Cairo and Splash. Its features may depend on which back-end it employs. A third back-end based on Qt4's painting framework "Arthur", is available, but is incomplete and no longer under active development. Bindings exist for Glib and Qt5, that provide interfaces to the Poppler backends, although the Qt5 bindings support only the Splash and Arthur backends. There is a patchset available to add support for the Cairo backend to the Qt5 bindings, but the Poppler project does not currently wish to integrate the feature into the library proper. Some characteristics of the back-ends include: • Cairo: Anti-aliasing of vector graphics, and transparent objects. Example: pdftotext file.pdf - | grep string Poppler partially supports annotations and Acroforms. It does not support JavaScript nor the rendering of full XFA forms. ==poppler-utils==

poppler-utils is a collection of command-line utilities built on Poppler's library API, to manage PDF and extract contents: • pdfattach – add a new embedded file (attachment) to an existing PDF • pdfdetach – extract embedded documents from a PDF • pdffonts – lists the fonts used in a PDF • pdfimages – extract all embedded images at native resolution from a PDF • pdfinfo – list all information of a PDF • pdfseparate – extract single pages from a PDF • pdftocairo – convert single pages from a PDF to vector or bitmap formats using cairo • pdftohtml – convert PDF to HTML format retaining formatting • pdftoppm – convert a PDF page to a bitmap • pdftops – convert PDF to printable PS format • pdftotext – extract all text from PDF • pdfunite – merges several PDFs ==See also==