"PDF & Developers"

By Leah Lothringer
PDF Store Support Team
Issue 16 for 2006

From the beginning, Adobe Acrobat has been extendible – third-party plug-ins have enhanced the product and have also influenced the functionality on offer. Many developers choose to license the Adobe PDF Library. Alternatively, there are a range of third-party libraries available to create and manipulate PDF. An array of developer libraries that produce PDF are discussed at Planet PDF.

PDF4NET and TallPDF.NET are both excellent examples of developer components written for a specific purpose -- PDF creation -- on a specific developer platform -- in this case, .NET. The PDF creation library PDFlib on the other hand, can be used in a wide variety of environments, and is well supported for integration into both desktop and server tools.

Glyph & Cog offers the ever-popular XpdfViewer component, which allows developers to add PDF viewing to their applications. One thing is for certain, the sheer breadth of tools can render the old "buy vs build" debate moot as far as PDF is concerned.

Until next time, please browse PDF Store's PDF Developer aisle for the complete range of PDF development tools, libraries and components.