PDF 1.3 Reference Manual March 11, 1999 :
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March 11, 1999
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Portable Document Format
Reference Manual
Version 1.3
Ë
: March 11, 1999
2 Adobe Systems Inc.
1993-1999 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Patents Pending.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher. Any software referred to herein is furnished under
license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license. Printed in the United States of America.
This publication and the information herein is furnished AS IS, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a
commitment by Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe Systems Incorporated assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or
inaccuracies, makes no warranty of any kind (express, implied or statutory) with respect to this publication, and expressly disclaims any and
all warranties of merchantability, fitness for particular purposes and noninfringement of third party rights.
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. All instances of the name PostScript in the text are references to the
PostScript language as defined by Adobe Systems Incorporated unless otherwise stated. The name PostScript also is used as a product
trademark for Adobe Systems’ implementation of the PostScript language interpreter.
Any references to a “PostScript printer,” a “PostScript file,” or a “PostScript driver” refer to printers, files, and driver programs (respectively)
which are written in or support the PostScript language. The sentences in this book that use “PostScript language” as an adjective phrase are
so constructed to reinforce that the name refers to the standard language definition as set forth by Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Adobe, Acrobat, the Acrobat logo, Adobe Garamond, Carta, Distiller, FrameMaker, Illustrator, Minion, Photoshop, the Photoshop logo,
Poetica, PostScript, and the PostScript logo are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. AdobePS and InDesign are trademarks
of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Apple, Macintosh, Mac, and TrueType are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United
States and other countries. ITC Stone and ITC Zapf Dingbats are registered trademarks of International Typeface Corporation. Helvetica and
Times are registered trademarks of Linotype–Hell AG and/or its subsidiaries. Lucida is a registered trademark of Bigelow and Holmes.
Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
Sun is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.All SPARC trademarks are used
under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Products bearing
SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
All other brand or product names are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Portable document format reference manual / Adobe Systems Incorporated.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.
505) and index.
ISBN 0–201–62628–4
1. File organization (Computer science) 2. PostScript (Computer program language)
3. Text processing (Computer science) I. Adobe Systems.
QA76.9.F5P67 199393–8046
005.74—dc20CIP
123456789–MA–9796959493
PDF 1.3 Reference Manual March 11, 1999 :
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Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 9
1.1 About this book 9
1.2 Introduction to the Second Edition—PDF 1.1 11
1.3 Introduction to the Third Edition—PDF 1.2 12
1.4 Introduction to the Fourth Edition—PDF 1.3 13
1.5 Conventions used in this book 14
1.6 A note on syntax 15
1.7 Copyright permission to use PDF 15
Portable Document Format 17
Chapter 2: Overview 19
2.1 What is the Portable Document Format? 19
2.2 Using PDF 19
2.3 General properties 22
2.4 PDF and the PostScript language 25
2.5 Understanding PDF 26
Chapter 3: Coordinate Systems 29
3.1 Device space 29
3.2 User space 30
3.3 Text space 31
3.4 Character space 31
3.5 Image space 31
3.6 Form space 31
3.7 Pattern space 32
3.8 Relationships among coordinate systems 32
3.9 Transformations between coordinate systems 33
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3.10 Transformation matrices 35
Chapter 4: Objects 37
4.1 Introduction 37
4.2 Booleans 37
4.3 Numbers 37
4.4 Strings and text 37
4.5 Names 39
4.6 Arrays 40
4.7 Dictionaries 40
4.8 Streams 41
4.9 The null object 53
4.10 Indirect objects 53
4.11 Object references 54
Chapter 5: File Structure 55
5.12 PDF files 55
5.13 Header 56
5.14 Body 56
5.15 Cross-reference table 57
5.16 Trailer 59
5.17 Incremental update 61
5.18 Encryption 62
Chapter 6: Document Structure 65
6.1 Introduction 65
6.2 Catalog 67
6.3 Pages tree 71
6.4 Page objects 73
6.5 Thumbnails 81
6.6 Annotations 82
6.7 Outline tree 104
6.8 Actions 107
6.9 Names dictionary 119
6.10 Info dictionary 120
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6.11 Articles 121
6.12 File ID 123
6.13 Encryption dictionary 124
6.14 Acrobat Forms 129
6.15 Sounds 147
6.16 Web Capture 148
6.17 Logical Structure in PDF 161
Chapter 7: Common Data Structures 183
7.1 Rectangle 183
7.2 Date 183
7.3 Destination 184
7.4 File specification 186
7.5 Resources dictionaries 195
7.6 ProcSets 198
7.7 Fonts 198
7.8 CIDFonts 210
7.9 Font encodings 213
7.10 CMaps 215
7.11 Font descriptors 222
7.12 Color spaces 230
7.13 XObjects 246
7.14 Functions 262
7.15 Extended graphics states 272
7.16 Halftones 275
7.17 Patterns 287
7.18 Smooth Shading 294
7.19 Property lists 313
7.20 Name tree 314
7.21 Number tree 316
Chapter 8: Page Descriptions 319
8.1 Overview 319
8.2 Graphics state 321
