Getting PDF color in PHP - php

I am trying to make project of a web app that will check the colour of the PDF document. My preferred language is PHP.
At the begining I've been thinking about GD, but this only refer to images (jpg, png, gif). Nothing for PDF. For images I am going to use some method similar to this: Get image color.
So does anyone know some method, library (opensource), or something else to make such app? I can't find any examples on the web.

You'll probably be best off converting the PDF into an image, and then using the same method you're using for images. In addition to being easy to do, that will also guarantee consistent results.
However, converting a PDF file to an image is not something that PHP alone is well-equipped to do. The best way to go is the ImageMagick based approach as described in this question. It gives a number of alternatives, too.

Related

Create a custom print ready image

I am looking to create a small app that allows a user to create a custom cover for a book. The client doesn't want to just be supplied with what the customer selected but a print ready 300dpi JPEG or PDF.
I know PHP can handle most of this. But the customisation seems to be a bit difficult to get right. I have tried using canvas to create the client side preview, which work ok enough.
Just to see if I'm wasting time trying to recreate the wheel, does anyone know if something like what I need exists already?
Basically it would be something kind of similiar to this but for creating print ready images.
Thanks!
If you're using Canvas for building the editor, for the best results, I'd recommend you re-render the customization on the server using whatever technology fits your need in PHP and not try to take the image they're looking at and make it work somehow by sending it to the server. The DPI will be wrong if you use Canvas in a standard way (it will be at the screen DPI).
For example, if they have the ability to place an image, then just note the coordinates and place the image in a web server created image at 300 DPI. Text, same thing, etc. Yes, it will be extra work, but it should be of higher quality and better consistency.
This would imply that there's a simple serialization format for the representation of the custom cover that is sent to the web server.
You might be able to use SVG, but you'll have to introduce a reliable SVG to PDF conversion and handle fonts. Maybe something like this? (I'm not sure that building an SVG editor would be easier than Canvas based).
Starting from your "work ok enough preview", jsPDF will be able to generate a PDF right from the browser in a breez.
convert the canvas to a image/jpeg (toDataURL will be your best friend)
instanciate a jsPDF object, add the image
output the jsPDF object
Tricky details:
beware your screen displays stuff with 72dpi but print expect 300dpi. So you can up scale your canvas then draw the image within the pdf PDF
beware to Cross Origin Resources: if you are using images outside your domain, you are doomed (or you will need a proxy)

Suggest a good image upload-and-crop tool

I'd like to know which up-and-crop tools you suggest to me. I tried couple of scripts like JCrop but I always get stack with some type of format like bmp. I either can't upload or I can upload but can't crop. If you use (or know) one that works well with different formats, then please just give me its name and I'll be strongly appreciated!
Well, i dont know much about JCrop but you can build it up with several tools.
I think image processing kind of works should be done on server side.
There is a good OOP Library called Imagine. It's mostly based on Python's Imaging Library which is awesome and has decent documentation. And this is its crop functions documentation.
On client side you can use some kind of image area selection tool to let the user determine desired area to crop. imgAreaSelect is good to go. Then you can send crop area to php by JQuery's post function or any other way.
It's amassing that in all this time this haven't got any other answers, I hope this helps.
Like stated in the other answer you should combine a few tools to solve each part of the problem.
To let the user select the cropping area:
If you don't like jCrop you can try Guillotine. It's very lightweight, easy to set up and allows to crop, zoom and rotate images. It has touch support and it's responsive (fluid).
Keep in mind that you can't display image types that the browser doesn't support, but you can convert them in step 3.
To upload the images:
For most cases, once you have the cropping area, with a simple file input will suffice.
Now, if you want to upload files asynchronously check out
this
for a quick and easy set up or this
for a more complex solution.
To actually crop and process the image:
Once uploaded you can crop, convert and process the images on the server, ImageMagick is a great tool for this. It's Open Source and many languages have wrappers for it.
You've tagged the question with PHP so here is a PHP wrapper for ImageMagick.

Programmatically create image from web-page or a single DIV

Is there any way to programmatically create (client or server side (PHP)) a image from a specific DIV or a complete (web) page? I'm currently creating a web-site for free coupons and the idea is when the end-user clicks on the "Print" button, the app opens a new tab/window with all the selected coupons as a single image (JPG, PNG or etc..) in A4 format ready for printing. Each coupons has it's own data (Article name, price, description etc..) so I need it to be done programmatically over a coupon-template I designed.
I do not ask you to write code for me, just to suggest a solution I could use/develop. If not already exist, I will upload/publish it for free :)
Update: I did it with the PHP GD library :) Still not satisfied with the idea to use Images instead of PDF, because each printing results with different Coupon sizes (images) on different PC's. That's why PDF may would be a better solution. You can see/test it on demo.svikuponi.ba - Just select a few Coupons and click the PRINTAJ button above.
You cannot create image from div for sure but yes you can create dynamic images in php using its gd library.
Following links will help:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.imagecreate.php
http://phptutorial.info/learn/create_images/
Here is a great way for you to create images on the client side: http://smus.com/screen-capture-for-chrome-os
You can take this and create a web app that will work nicely on webkit (for other browsers - I'll look at JS polyfills).
Did anyone mention html2canvas and/or jsfeedback ?
It create a page screenshot completely in javascript, then you can send to the server via ajax..
Obviously, CSS support lack some things.
In php, there is many image related functions like imagettftext() in GD library
for details, check this out http://php.net/manual/en/book.image.php
if GD is not enough, you can try imagick as well
for the template, you can try creating a true color handle in php from your file(image) and add the text part or something else with all kinds of effects and bar codes etc.
but in your case, i would suggest dynamic PDF creation since it would better with formatting instead of plain image, the pdf lib :
http://www.fpdf.org/
you could easily have a background image of your token/voucher and overlay the text using some php variables.
i believe it is possible to create a unique bar-code with php imaging too.
It is possible to get a screenshot from a webpage, but this is quite a hassle. You need to start a webbrowser to render the page and get a screenshot from that.
You are probably better of by parsing some specification and feeding it to a couple of GD or Imagick functions. This is less versatile, but easier to manage.

PHP GD Duplicate image from Different server

I don't know how to do this and I was wondering if someone smart could give me an example :)
I want someone to be able to post a png,jpg, or bmp image url and then id use PHP GD to duplicate the image including width and height.
Could someone give me an example of this? Also id like it to support only png, jpeg, and bmp.
I would, in the script, download the URL first (check out PHP cURL), and then attempt to read in the file using GD.
http://php.net/manual/en/book.curl.php
http://php.net/manual/en/book.image.php
You can do a simple regex (something like /^.*\.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$/i) on the URL, but URLs don't always represent the type of file you get. Depending on what you need, it might be better to download first and ask questions later.

Using PHP to recreate something similar to VistaPrint / CafePress / Zazzle. Any Ideas?

I am working on a website in which the client wishes to have users upload background images to a printable design, crop to size, add text. Do this to multiple pages then generate a pdf of the 'book'
I am running into the following issues/questions and just need to see where I can start
Are there any PHP developer packages that can do something similar. I have seen jquery crop tools but something also for adding text to an image?
How would I keep the resolution up? If the final cropped with text image needs to be 150dpi, when cropping I am guessing I would have them working on a 72dpi image, then somehow apply the crop and changes to the large image?
If the resolution issue wasn't a big deal I would go about it this way:
Simple image upload
Use jquery to crop photo to correct dimensions
Mess around with gdlibrary and imagettftext() to get the text onto an image (page)
Use something like FPDF to create a pdf from each 'page'
Is this the right way to go about it and any thoughts on the resolution issue. Thank you for any help!
Your primary tool should be ImageMagick. ImageMagick can do the cropping, resizing, scaling, overlay text or graphics, combining images, and apply special effects. A big advantage of using a separate tool instead of PHP's image manipulation tools is that you can do the same transforms in batch through other mechanisms, or even hand the work over to another server to keep the website more responsive. And if you do want to integrate it tightly into the website, you can use the MagickWand For PHP interface.
Cropping does not change DPI, only the dimensions of the image. Scaling, on the other hand, changed both.
You should take a look at Gallery, a GPLed program with some of the functionality you're looking for, and written in PHP.
domPDF is a good tool for converting HTML to a PDF. this way you can use the image they upload as a background image, then put the text over it in any standard HTML tag.
As far as the resolution/dpi issue goes, I'm not sure if there is much you can do outside of changing the size of the image. I would recommend looking into This PHP Library, which has a lot of good tools for manipulating images.
I think with a combination of these tools, you'll be able to create HTML that can make a PDF that's fit to print, and use that.

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