130 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
130 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
img2pdf
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=======
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Lossless conversion of images to PDF without unnecessarily re-encoding JPEG and
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JPEG2000 files. Thus, no loss of quality and no unnecessary large output file.
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Background
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----------
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PDF is able to embed JPEG and JPEG2000 images as they are without re-encoding
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them (and hence loosing quality) but I was missing a tool to do this
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automatically, thus I wrote this piece of python code.
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If you know how to embed JPEG and JPEG2000 images into a PDF container without
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recompression, using existing tools, please contact me so that I can put this
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code into the garbage bin :D
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Functionality
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-------------
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The program will take image filenames from commandline arguments and output a
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PDF file with them embedded into it. If the input image is a JPEG or JPEG2000
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file, it will be included as-is without any processing. If it is in any other
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format, the image will be included as zip-encoded RGB. As a result, this tool
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will be able to lossless wrap any image into a PDF container while performing
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better (in terms of quality/filesize ratio) than existing tools in case the
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input image is a JPEG or JPEG2000 file.
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For example, imagemagick will re-encode the input JPEG image and thus change
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its content:
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$ convert img.jpg img.pdf
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$ pdfimages img.pdf img.extr # not using -j to be extra sure there is no recompression
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$ compare -metric AE img.jpg img.extr-000.ppm null:
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1.6301e+06
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If one wants to do a lossless conversion from any format to PDF with
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imagemagick then one has to use zip-encoding:
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$ convert input.jpg -compress Zip output.pdf
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$ pdfimages img.pdf img.extr # not using -j to be extra sure there is no recompression
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$ compare -metric AE img.jpg img.extr-000.ppm null:
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0
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The downside is, that using imagemagick like this will make the resulting PDF
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files a few times bigger than the input JPEG or JPEG2000 file and can also not
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output a multipage PDF.
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img2pdf is able to output a PDF with multiple pages if more than one input
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image is given, losslessly embed JPEG and JPEG2000 files into a PDF container
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without adding more overhead than the PDF structure itself and will save all
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other graphics formats using lossless zip-compression.
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Another nifty advantage: Since no re-encoding is done in case of JPEG images,
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the conversion is many (ten to hundred) times faster with img2pdf compared to
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imagemagick. While a run of above convert command with a 2.8MB JPEG takes 27
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seconds (on average) on my machine, conversion using img2pdf takes just a
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fraction of a second.
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Commandline Arguments
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---------------------
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At least one input file argument must be given as img2pdf needs to seek in the
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file descriptor which would not be possible for stdin.
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Specify the dpi with the -d or --dpi options instead of reading it from the
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image or falling back to 96.0.
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Specify the output file with -o or --output. By default output will be done to
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stdout.
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Specify metadata using the --title, --author, --creator, --producer,
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--creationdate, --moddate, --subject and --keywords options (or their short
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forms).
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Specify -C or --colorspace to force a colorspace using PIL short handles like
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'RGB', 'L' or '1'.
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More help is available with the -h or --help option.
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Bugs
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----
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If you find a JPEG or JPEG2000 file that, when embedded can not be read by the
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Adobe Acrobat Reader, please contact me.
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For lossless conversion of other formats than JPEG or JPEG2000 files, zip/flate
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encoding is used. This choice is based on a number of tests I did on images.
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I converted them into PDF using imagemagick and all compressions it has to
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offer and then compared the output size of the lossless variants. In all my
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tests, zip/flate encoding performed best. You can verify my findings using the
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test_comp.sh script with any input image given as a commandline argument. If
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you find an input file that is outperformed by another lossless compression,
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contact me.
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I have not yet figured out how to read the colorspace from jpeg2000 files.
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Therefor jpeg2000 files use DeviceRGB per default. If your jpeg2000 files are
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of any other colorspace you must force it using the --colorspace option.
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Like -C L for DeviceGray.
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Installation
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------------
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You can install the package using:
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$ pip install img2pdf
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If you want to install from source code simply use:
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$ cd img2pdf/
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$ pip install .
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To test the console script without installing the package on your system,
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simply use virtualenv:
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$ cd img2pdf/
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$ virtualenv ve
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$ ve/bin/pip install .
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You can then test the converter using:
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$ ve/bin/img2pdf -o test.pdf src/tests/test.jpg
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Note that the package can also be used as a library as follows:
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import img2pdf
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pdf_bytes = img2pdf.convert(['test.jpg'])
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file = open("name.pdf","wb")
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file.write(pdf_bytes)
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