It's not just webby stuff, you know. This week I've been mostly been writing PDF using PDF::API2. The docs are complete, but there's a walkthrough which is very helpful. Of course, I had to go slightly overboard and read the PDF Reference. PDF::API2 is pretty good, you can copy pages from other PDFs, insert images and use TTF fonts. Actually doing the design is a bit tedious (this box here, this text here in this colour) but not too hard. I really liked working on this project as I'm generating a very colourful, well-designed double-sided A3 sheet with minimal amounts of coding. I'd recommend it whenever you have to generate and print very specific designs. I quite like PDF, and I wonder why it's not more popular. Well, apart from (0, 0) being bottom-left...
In cooking news, I made roasted curried sweet potatoes yesterday, mmm...
Re:PDF::API2++
ChrisDolan on 2006-01-12T23:02:07
Oh another point I forgot to make: why it's not more popular. I think the main reason is that it's an end format rather than an intermediate format. That is, PDF can be very hard to edit. Editing PDF can be like composing a letter in Illustrator. There are just better optimized tools for that.
And that said, it's a hugely popular format. There simply is no competitor today for cross-platform, pixel-perfect, efficient delivery of static media. Someday, SVG may compete but not yet. Some people treat MS Word like a cross-platform vehicle for documents, but it's far from cross-platform, or even cross-version!
