pdfserver 0.3

Pdfserver is a webservice that offers common PDF operations like joining documents, selecting pages or "n pages on one".

Pdfserver is a webservice that offers common PDF operations like joining documents, selecting pages or “n pages on one”. It is built on top of the Python based microframework Flask and depends on pyPdf to manipulate PDFs.

Rationale

Powerful tools to manipulate PDF exist but they are not universally available on all systems or not simple to use. This server allows anyone to quickly solve most common PDF operations over the web.

If you don’t trust other servers with your data, deploy a copy yourself!

Example

See http://pdfserverapp.appspot.com/ for an example installation.

Dependencies

(see requirements.txt)

• Python 2.5, http://www.python.org

• Flask (tested on 0.6), http://flask.pocoo.org/

• Flask-Babel, http://packages.python.org/Flask-Babel/

• SQLAlchemy (probably >= 0.6.0), http://www.sqlalchemy.org/

• pyPdf (tested with 1.12, but needs git~20091021 for “N pages on one”), http://pybrary.net/pyPdf/

Optionally

• python-reportlab (tested with 2.4) for adding watermarks, http://www.reportlab.com/software/opensource/rl-toolkit/

Already included

• jQuery & jQuery UI (tested with 1.8.4) (both already shipped with pdfserver), needs at least UI core, “Sortable” and “Dialog” from jQuery UI, http://jquery.com/

• jQuery plugin: Validation, http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/

Features

• Simple, yet powerful

• Designed to work with&without Javascript

• N pages on one

• Joining of files

• Selecting pages & page ranges

• Rotate pages

• Add watermark to pages

• Runs on the Google App Engine

Changes

0.3

• Renamed to “pdfserver” from “django-pdfserver”

• “N pages on one” feature

• Move to Flask from Django

• Google App Engine support

0.2.1

• Page rotation

• Watermark feature

• Page range validation

Deploy

Install this application with:

$ python setup.py install pdfserver

You can simply run the development server with:

$ python run.py createdb
$ mkdir uploads
$ python run.py

General

1. Make sure the given upload directory and database can be written to and are not accessible from the outside (if on a public server).

2. When not in debug mode make sure to serve static files under static.

3. Give a SECRET_KEY and keep it secret so that sessions can be signed and users cannot see files uploaded by others.

4. Create the database by running in Python:

   >>> from pdfserver import models, database; database.init_db()

Serve as CGI

See pdfserver.cgi for an example on how to run pdfserver through the traditional CGI interface.

Google App Engine

For pdfserver to run on the App Engine you need to download and copy dependencies locally:

# Get dependencies
$ mkdir tmp
$ pip install -r requirements.txt distribute --build=tmp --src=tmp \
  --no-install --ignore-installed
$ mv tmp/Babel/babel/ tmp/Flask/flask/ tmp/Flask-Babel/flaskext/ \
  tmp/Jinja2/jinja2/ tmp/pypdf/pyPdf/ tmp/pytz/pytz \
  tmp/speaklater/speaklater.py tmp/Werkzeug/werkzeug/ \
  tmp/reportlab/src/reportlab/ tmp/distribute/pkg_resources.py .
$ rm -rf tmp
# Add a secret key
$ $EDITOR appengine.py
# Choose your application name
$ $EDITOR app.yaml
# Run the development server
$ /usr/local/google_appengine/dev_appserver.py .
# Finally upload
$ /usr/local/google_appengine/appcfg.py update .

Contact

Please report bugs to http://github.com/cburgmer/pdfserver/issues.

Christoph Burgmer <cburgmer (at) ira uka de>