Using DDX to unlock the potential of PDF manipulation in ColdFusion 8

DDX for ColdFusion

The version of Adobe LiveCycle that is imbedded in ColdFusion 8 is a somewhat limited version compared to the full server that you could purchase from Adobe, but the DDX elements that are supported still give ColdFusion developers a pretty wide array of functionality, especially compared to what they've had up until now. The following list describes the different DDX elements that are available through ColdFusion 8.

The full details of each of these elements can be found in the Adobe LiveCycle documentation, in the DDX Language Elements section.

• About: Returns an "About" XML document with information about the LiveCycle assembler service including build, copyright, processor, and version. More information on the structure and contents of the returned About XML document can be found in the LiveCycle documentation.
• Author: Allows you to specify the author of the PDF document, which is then stored in the metadata. Multiple authors may be specified using a comma or semicolon delimited list.
• Background: Inserts styled text or PDF content behind the existing page content. The background is applied to all pages and replaces any pre-existing backgrounds by default. The background element contains a series of attributes, which allow for things like fitting the background to the page, setting the opacity of the background, setting the scale or rotation, and more.
• Center: Specifies that the content should be centered within the header or footer element and thus is required to be nested within a Header or Footer element.
• DatePattern: Specifies the format of a date and time string. This format can only be applied to built-in date/time keys including _Created, _Modified, _DateTime, and has a series of sub-elements including second, minute, hour, and so forth.
• DDX: The root element of the DDX document, in which all other DDX elements are nested. There are a series of other attributes including metadata, styles, and password encryption and access that can be specified as part of the root DDX element.
• DocumentInformation: Returns an XML document that contains information about the source PDF document including metadata and other information about the pages in the document including the number of pages, page sizes, labels, and so forth.
• DocumentText: Returns an XML document that contains information about the text that is contained in the specified source PDF document. This allows you to easily grab all of the text within a document.
• Footer: Is used to specify the footer to be placed on one or more pages within the PDF document. The footer element has attributes like padding, alteration, and styles, and contains sub-elements like center, left, and right to indicate how the content of the footer is to be placed.
• Header: Is used to specify the header to be placed on one or more pages within the PDF document. Like the footer, the header element has attributes like padding, alteration, and styles, and contains sub-elements like center, left, and right to indicate how the content of the header is to be placed.
• InitialViewProfile: Specifies how the document is to be viewed when it is opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Through this element, you could specify that the document should start on page 2 and the magnification set to fit the page to the viewing window.
• Keyword: Specifies a single keyword that is then used for metadata.
• Keywords: Specifies a series of key words that may append or overwrite the current keywords in the metadata of the resulting document.
• Left: Specifies that the content should be left justified within the header or footer element and thus is required to be nested within a Header or Footer element.
• MasterPassword: Specifies the master password for the result document, which, if provided, will be required to change permissions on the document. If this element is omitted, the document will not be password-protected at the master level.
• Metadata: Allows for setting or getting the metadata for a PDF document including information like the title, author, and date created.
• NoBookmarks: Specifies that all bookmarks on the PDF document should be removed.
• OpenPassword: Specifies the password that will be required to open the document. This password only provides the user with the ability to open the document and the user can still be restricted from other actions.
• PageLabel: Specifies the format and content of the page labels including page numbers, format, and other information.
• Password: Specifies a password that the LiveCycle assembler can use to open an encrypted document for manipulation.
• PasswordAccessProfile: Specifies a named profile containing a password to allow the LiveCycle assembler to access a document. This profile allows password access to be defined once and used later on in the DDX document.
• PasswordEncryptionProfile: Specifies the profile containing security settings for the resulting document, including compatibility level, encryption level, passwords, and more. This profile allows encryption settings to be defined once and used later on in the DDX document.
• PDF: Describes the contents of a source or result PDF document. The PDF element for the LiveCycle assembler included with ColdFusion does not support the certification or mergeLayers attributes.
• PDFGroup: Allows for a collection of source PDF documents to be grouped and page properties, content, and document components may then be applied to the group as a whole.
• Permissions: Specifies the permissions to be set for a document including print, edit, copy, and screenReading as well as containing the nested MasterPassword element.
• Right: Specifies that the content should be right-justified within the header or footer element and thus is required to be nested within a Header or Footer element.
• StyledText: Describes rich text content that is to be added to the page and can include sub-elements like left, center, right, watermark, background, and tableOfContentsEntryPattern.  Rich text content within the styleText element conforms to a subset of the XHTML 1.0 specification and can also accept a limit set of style properties from the CSS specification, version 2.0.
• StyleProfile: Specifies a named profile that contains sub-elements like a table of contents, header and footer, watermark or background, which can then be applied to a document. This profile allows styles to be defined once and used later on in the DDX document.
• Subject: Provides the value for the subject metadata in the resulting document.
• TableOfContents: The parent, wrapper, element for a table of contents that will be added to the result document. This element can contain sub-elements such as page size, page rotation, header, and footer, as well as TableOfContentsEntryPattern and TableOfContentsPagePattern.
• TableOfContentsEntryPattern: Defines the style that is applied to all table of contents entries and can optionally be limited to a specific bookmark level to apply different styles to different levels of the table of contents.
• TableOfContentsPagePattern: Defines the style that is to be applied to all pages of the table of contents including page size, rotation, margins, header and footer, watermark, and so forth.
• Title: Provides the value for the document title metadata in the resulting document.
• Watermark: Inserts styled text or PDF content over the existing page content. The watermark is applied to all pages and replaces any pre-existing watermarks by default. The watermark element contains a series of attributes, which allow for things like fitting the watermark to the page, setting the opacity of the watermark, setting the scale or rotation, and more.

If you have made it this far, you can see the number of options for customization of PDF documents through DDX is quite impressive.

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