Integrating pdfToolbox technology using the command-line or the SDK

Sometimes closer integration than simply hot folders is needed. In that case pdfToolbox provides integration through the command-line (with pdfToolbox CLI) and integration through the SDK (with pdfToolbox SDK).

pdfToolbox CLI

pdfToolbox CLI is available on MacOS, Windows and Linux.
On all platforms it provides the same functionality; on top of that, the command-line is very complete, very flexible and extremely fast. To get going with pdfToolbox CLI, install pdfToolbox Server on Mac OS X or Windows, or install pdfToolbox CLI on the other platforms. The pdfToolbox Server installer will install the following components:

  1. The pdfToolbox Server installation folder on Mac OS X.
  2. The pdfToolbox Desktop application installed by the pdfToolbox Server installer.
  3. The pdfToolbox CLI application. This is the application that needs to be called on the command-line.
  4. The documentation folder for the command-line version. This manual can also be found online: callas pdfToolbox CLI (command line interface).

The easiest way to find out what you can do with the command-line, is to run the --help command.

./pdfToolbox --help
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This will provide a long help text with parameters available when working with Profiles or Process Plans (as shown in the screengrab above), and with the various "commands" usable with pdfToolbox CLI. Once you find the command you want to work with, drill-down in the help for it; for example, to know how to save images from pdfToolbox, issue the command:

./pdfToolbox --help saveasimg
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Read more about pdfToolbox CLI in the online documentation under the chapter: callas pdfToolbox CLI.

pdfToolbox SDK

callas pdfToolbox SDK offers a comprehensive programming 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.

The software development kit for pdfToolbox has C/C++ as its primary development language, but it comes with APIs and example code for other development environments such as Java or .NET.

When evaluating whether you are going to use the SDK, you should keep in mind that it comes with sample code, but that the code is not production-ready. You will have to write actual production code to integrate the SDK in your solution.