RubyPDF Blog

yesterday, A Chinese developer sent me WMF with Chinese character, and the FontFace name is also Chinese, he said the iTextSharp could convert the WMF to PDF correctly. so I try to debug into the source code, and find MetaFont only support ASCII.

try {
faceName = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(1252).GetString(name, 0, k);
}
catch {
faceName = System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(name, 0, k);
}


but charset of Chinese font(GB2312) is 134, so I think the source code needs to get encoding from charset, and then get the right faceName.
Finally, I get the following codes,

public enum FontCharSet : byte
{
ANSI_CHARSET = 0,// ANSI charset (Windows-1252)
DEFAULT_CHARSET = 1,
SYMBOL_CHARSET = 2,
MAC_CHARSET = 77,
SHIFTJIS_CHARSET = 128,// Shift JIS charset (Windows-932)
HANGEUL_CHARSET = 129,// Hangeul charset (Windows-949)
HANGUL_CHARSET = 129,
JOHAB_CHARSET = 130, // Johab charset (Windows-1361)
GB2312_CHARSET = 134,// GB2312 charset (Windows-936)
CHINESEBIG5_CHARSET = 136,// Chinese Big5 charset (Windows-950)
GREEK_CHARSET = 161, // Greek charset (Windows-1253)
TURKISH_CHARSET = 162,// Turkish charset (Windows-1254)
VIETNAMESE_CHARSET = 163,// Vietnamese charset (Windows-1258)
HEBREW_CHARSET = 177,// Hebrew charset (Windows-1255)
ARABIC_CHARSET = 178,// Arabic charset (Windows-1256)
BALTIC_CHARSET = 186,// Baltic charset (Windows-1257)
RUSSIAN_CHARSET = 204,// Cyrillic charset (Windows-1251)
THAI_CHARSET = 222,// Thai charset (Windows-874)
EASTEUROPE_CHARSET = 238, // Eastern european charset (Windows-1250)
OEM_CHARSET = 255,
}

and some very useful source codes( WMFUtilities.java and WMFConstants.java ) file from Apache Batik, it has implement the charset issue.

BTW, iText also has the same issue,

187 try {
188 font = BaseFont.createFont(fontName, "Cp1252", false);
189 }
190 catch (Exception e) {
191 throw new ExceptionConverter(e);
192 }

A requirement of my customer is as follow,

In access there’s the possibilities to import an xml file into a table but the problem is that the procedure is manual and is possible to import a file once a time. I ask you if you can develop a VB utility trough out I can select a list of XML files and append them to a specific table.

After researched, i knew, he means ImportXML Method,

Imports data and/or presentation information for a Microsoft Access object from an XML file or files.

expression.ImportXML(DataSource, DataTransform, OtherFlags)

expression   Required. An expression that returns an Application object.

DataSource  Required String. The name and path of the XML file to import.

DataTransform  Optional String. The name of the XSL file to apply to the incoming XML data.

OtherFlags  Optional Long. A bit mask which specifies other behaviors associated with importing from XML. The following table describes the behavior that results from specific values; values can be added to specify a combination of behaviors.

Value	Description
1	Overwrite  The import file silently overwrites the target should it already exist.
2	Don’t create structure  By default, new structures are created. If Overwrite is not set, an alert asks the user for permission to overwrite.
4	Don’t import data  By default, data is imported when a data document is used to create a schema.

Example

The following example imports an XML file representing a table called Invoices into the current database. Access overwrites the Invoices table if it already exists.

Application.ImportXML _
    DataSource:=”C:\XMLData\Invoices.xml”, _
    OtherFlags:=1

It is very easy to implement, but any way, it is a very useful utility.

Here is a requirement that want to batch dump xmp from PDF to xml file or Database,

I’d like to know if you have developed or if you can develop an application for extracting customize XMP from PDF documents.

I’ll try to be more relevant: I customized a specific card for additional metadata in Acrobat Professional. If I save the xmp properties in xml format, I obtain the value that I inserted, after that I import xml file in Database. I’d like to know if is possible to develop an application that can extract xmp customized value from a group of PDF files.

And what is XMP?

Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is a labeling technology that allows you to embed data about a file, known as metadata, into the file itself. With XMP, desktop applications and back-end publishing systems gain a common method for capturing, sharing, and leveraging this valuable metadata — opening the door for more efficient job processing, workflow automation, and rights management, among many other possibilities. With XMP, Adobe has taken the “heavy lifting” out of metadata integration, offering content creators an easy way to embed meaningful information about their projects and providing industry partners with standards-based building blocks to develop optimized workflow solutions.

Finally, I used iTextSharp(of course iText also ok) to batch extract XMP from PDF, and save it to XML.