[Tfug] PDF Scripting examples

[Bexley Hall]

On 7/15/2013 10:51 AM, Bexley Hall wrote:

>>> Viewing them from "Adobe Reader" (since "Acrobat" now means something
>>> different than it did, originally) shows the intended behavior(s).
>>>
>>> So, I guess the "wannabes" don't implement the advanced features
>>> that Adobe supports
>>
>> Then perhaps it would be more accurate to describe this as "Acrobat (or
>> Adobe Reader) Scripting".
>
> Given that Adobe created (and continues to define) the PDFormat,
> I see no reason not to call it "PDF scripting" and just note
> that not all PDF viewers are as capable as Adobe's.  E.g., you
> can "view" a PDF using od(1)... it's just a helluvalot more
> tedious to do so!  :>  (as damn near all the apparent "value"
> of the format goes away)

To expound on this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format>

JS actions are claimed to have been present in the format since 2000.
Interactive page elements (radio buttons, checkboxes &c), forms, mouse
events, movies (external player) and sound since 1996 and 3D models
in 2004.  I'm not sure when support for Flash was introduced.

All these *before* it was an "open standard" in 2008 (i.e., so they
are all documented *in* that open standard).  Thus, it's not that
this stuff is "proprietary" or "hidden" in some way (i.e., needing
to be reverse engineered).  Rather, it's just that it's a wee bit
harder than simply "decoding PostScript"... (which gs(1) already
had done)