File Format PDF

The Portable Document Format (PDF) was developed by the Adobe Corporation to allow the exchange and viewing of electronic documents easily and reliably, independent of the environment in which they were created. This format lets you compress large documents to a size small enough to download very quickly. It is also becoming a powerful format for reproducing documents over the web.

PDF support is included with the LEADTOOLS PDF and the Document and Medical toolkits.

The PDF Filter can:

The following table summarizes the filter's capabilities:

PDF Version Read Write Flags
PDF v1.2 Supported V12
PDF v1.3 Supported V13
PDF v1.4 Supported V14
PDF v1.5 Supported V15
PDF v1.6 Supported V16
PDF v1.7 Supported V17
PdfA Supported PdfA

By default, the filter saves to PDF v1.2. To save the PDF file as a specific PDF version, set the value of the Version property to:

In LEADTOOLS version 16 and later, the PDF Filter supports saving PDF/A format. PDF/A does not support all compression formats (see https://pdfa.org/pdfa-faq/ for more details). Therefore you cannot use this flag in conjunction with RasterImageFormat.RasPdfLzw.

This filter can load JBIG2 compressed PDF files. It can both load and save PDF files that are JPEG CCITT, CCITT G3 2D, or CCITT G4 compressed, or are uncompressed. In addition, this filter supports saving JBIG2 and JPEG2000 compressed data (Jp2). (Note that JBIG2 is only available for PDF 1. 4 or later and JPEG2000 is only available for PDF 1.5 or later.)

This filter supports an option that disables the cropping of files, by setting the DisableCropping property, and an option that disables the use of CIE colors, by setting the DisableCieColors property. Disabling the use of CIE colors will result in faster loading of PS files.

The file constants associated with this file format are:

Constant Read Support Write Support Description
RasPdf Yes * 1, 2, 4, 8, 24 BPP Raster PDF uncompressed.
RasPdfCmyk N/A * 24 BPP Raster PDF with CMYK support.
RasPdfG31Dim N/A * 1 BPP Raster PDF with G3 1D Compression.
RasPdfG32Dim N/A * 1 BPP Raster PDF with G3 2D Compression.
RasPdfG4 N/A * 1 BPP Raster PDF with G4 Compression.
RasPdfLzw N/A * 1, 2, 4, 8, 24 BPP Raster PDF with LZW Compression.
RasPdfLzwCmyk N/A * 24 BPP Raster PDF with CMYK support and LZW Compression.
RasPdfJpeg N/A * 8 BPP (Grayscale) 24 BPP Raster PDF with JPEG 4:4:4 Compression.
RasPdfJpeg422 N/A * 24 BPP Raster PDF with JPEG 4:2:2 Compression.
RasPdfJpeg411 N/A * 24 BPP Raster PDF with JPEG 4:1:1 Compression.
RasPdfJbig2 N/A * 1 BPP Raster PDF with JBIG2 Compression.
RasPdfJpx N/A * 24 BPP Raster PDF with Jpx Compression.

* Note: When you request file information on a PDF file, RasPdf will always be returned for the file format, regardless of the composition of the PDF file. LEADTOOLS can read PDF documents that are made up of both text and images. The text and images are rasterized into one raster image for each page of the document. LEADTOOLS can write PDF documents that are made up of raster images only.

LEADTOOLS supports writing the PDF file format using the LEADTOOLS Document Writers. For more information, refer to Programming with the LEADTOOLS Document Writers.

Required DLL: Leadtools.Pdf.dll, Leadtools.ColorConversion.dll and Leadtools.Codecs.Fax.dll. The files required for reading PDF and writing PDF are different. For a listing of the exact DLLs needed, based on the toolkit version, refer to Files To Be Included With Your Application .

Related Formats: PS - PostScript Document Format, RTF - Rich Text Format.

Platform Support

Extension Module Value Win32 Win64 Net32 Net64 Linux Android Apple UWP MimeType Friendly Name
Ccitt TIF 25 image/tiff TIFF CCITT
Jbig2 JB2 183 image/x-jbig2 JB2 - JBIG2 format
Jp2 J2K 163 image/x-jpeg-2000 Jpeg2000 file with Lossy or Lossless Compression
Jpeg JPG 10 image/jpeg JPEG File Interchange Format - JFIF
RasPdf PDF 146 application/pdf PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format with no compression
RasPdfCmyk PDF 333 application/pdf PDF CMYK data - Adobe Portable Document Format with no compression
RasPdfG31Dim PDF 147 application/pdf PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format with group 3 1-Dimensional Compression
RasPdfG32Dim PDF 148 application/pdf PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format with group 3 2-Dimensional Compression
RasPdfG4 PDF 149 application/pdf PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format with group 4 Compression
RasPdfJpeg PDF 150 application/pdf PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format with JPEG 4-4-4 or grayscale Compression
RasPdfJpeg422 PDF 151 application/pdf PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format with JPEG 4-2-2 Compression
RasPdfJpeg411 PDF 152 application/pdf PDF - Adobe Portable Document Format with JPEG 4-1-1 Compression
RasPdfJbig2 PDF 188 application/pdf PDF JBIG2 - Adobe Portable Document Format with JBIG2 Compression
RasPdfJpx PDF 388 application/pdf PDF, JPX - Portable Document Format
RasPdfLzw PDF 179 application/pdf PDF LZW - Adobe Portable Document Format with LZW Compression
RasPdfLzwCmyk PDF 334 application/pdf PDF CMYK data - Adobe Portable Document Format with LZW Compression

For a complete list for supported file formats, see Summary of All Supported File Formats.

For details of the file formats supported across products and platforms, refer to File Format Comparison Chart.

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