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callas pdfToolbox SDK

Produced by callas software GmbH

pdftoolbox-logo_sdk-rgbcallas pdfToolbox SDK offers a comprehensive interface and sample code for thorough integration of pdfToolbox technology into your own solution. It gives in-depth access for analysis and manipulation of the PDF and embedded formats such as fonts, metadata, color profiles, image compression and more. With C/C++ as its primary programming language it also offers APIs for other development and deployment environments - such as .NET or JAVA.

Close integration

pdfToolbox SDK is a software development kit that allows for integration of the pdfToolbox functionality in the closest possible way inside your own application. Because pdfToolbox SDK doesn’t rely on command-line or hot folder integration, it provides seamless development integration with the highest level of control for the parent application.

Supported environments

pdfToolbox SDK provides a native C library that provides easy integration in C code or through included header files  in C++ projects. Additional wrappers cater for .NET or Java environments. pdfToolbox SDK is available for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Sun Solaris and IBM AIX making it an extremely flexible way to integrate the pdfToolbox functionality.

Jumpstarting your development

pdfToolbox SDK comes with developer documentation but also with a number of extensive samples to show off the broad feature set of the SDK and to get you started in your development project. These samples are of course not production code, but they provide a jump-start for your developers that will facilitate quick integration of the SDK.

Great ROI with proven quality and reliability

Building on pdfToolbox SDK gives you immediate access to all of the quality control and PDF manipulation possibilities of pdfToolbox, embedded in your application. callas software keeps close tabs on existing and emerging PDF standards and makes sure your applications remain up-to-date. This allows customers to concentrate on their own strengths while using a reliably, easily customizable library to take care of their PDF requirements.
The speed, quality and reliability of the pdfToolbox engine are undisputed; more than 60 OEM customers use the SDK worldwide; amongst those many well-known names such as Adobe, Foxit, Mitsubishi, Quark, Xerox. The list is a testament to the quality of pdfToolbox SDK and to the professional way in which callas software supports its customers.

Quality control and PDF manipulation

Of course pdfToolbox SDK is capable of running any pdfToolbox Desktop preflight profile on PDF files. During that process it provides a number of configurable options and allows generating any number of preflight reports. This makes it possible to perform a preflight and get for example a PDF report with annotations, a customizable PDF report generated from an HTML template and an XML report containing information that can be processed by a further automated process.
But next to preflight profiles, pdfToolbox SDK can also be used to perform a long list of other tasks on PDF files:

  • Various simple and more complex imposition tasks
  • Splitting and merging PDF files, duplicating pages
  • Creating PostScript and EPS files
  • Converting from office documents, images and PostScript/EPS to PDF
  • Saving images for each page in a PDF
  • Extracting content (text) and images from a PDF
  • Comparing two PDF files
  • Securing a PDF file with a password

pdfToolbox SDK versus pdfToolbox CLI

Because callas provides two integration solutions for the pdfToolbox engine - pdfToolbox CLI and pdfToolbox SDK – the question comes up which of the two would be the ideal for your workflow. In general the differences between the two solutions are minimal and in the end much will depend on your integration resources and your familiarity with command-line or library integration. Some of the important differences are:

  • pdfToolbox SDK provides a complete set of callback functions to let you control PDF processing as it takes place. This provides a closer integration than possible with pdfToolbox CLI which relies on return codes and information through stdout and XML reports.
  • Both solutions fully support parallel processing: pdfToolbox CLI through parallel processes (organized by the operating system) and pdfToolbox SDK through parallel threads (through the use of a special extension package bundled with every library).
  • Variables to customize quality control and PDF fixing are supported by pdfToolbox CLI and pdfToolbox SDK alike. Additionally pdfToolbox SDK has possibilities to manipulate preflight profiles (allowing to duplicate, merge or modify preflight profiles in code).
  • If your application already integrates with the Adobe PDF Library, pdfToolbox SDK offers the additional benefit of allowing you to open PDF documents with the Adobe PDF Library and then manipulating them with pdfToolbox SDK. This sort of cooperation is not possible with pdfToolbox CLI.

pdfToolbox for OEM customers

pdfToolbox is used by many OEM customers worldwide; they integrate pdfToolbox technology into their own workflows to accept PDFs that are being uploaded in a web application, to aggregate or impose, to soft proof print material, to let users view and modify PDF files and much more. For more information click here.




Product Type

API / SDK Windows MacOS Linux Server Developer tool Workflow management Utility


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