PDF Page Elements Overview |
A PDF page element represents anything that can be added to a renderer and it implements the PageElement abstract class. The PDF Creator defines two types of page elements: graphic elements that are inheriting the PageGraphicElement class and interactive page elements inheriting directly the PageElement class.
The graphic elements have common properties like fore color, back color, transparency, rotation angle. Examples of graphic elements are HTML to PDF Converter element, RTF to PDF Converter element, text element, image element, shapes elements. Examples of interactive page elements are internal link element, url link element, text note element, file attachment element.
The PDF Creator defines the following graphic elements that can be added to a page:
The page graphic elements inherit the PageGraphicElement class. This class defines the following properties and methods that can be used to change the aspect of the element:
ForeColor - this property defines the color used to draw a shape for example the color of a line when drawing a line element or the text color when drawing a text.
BackColor - this property defines the background color of a graphic element, for example the background color of rectangle when rendering a rectangle element.
Gradient - this property defines a gradient color to be used when filling a shape like a rectangle element.
Rotate(Single) - this method is used to rotate clockwise the coordinates system with a specified angle before rendering the graphic element.
Transparency - this property is used to set the graphic element transparency. It is expected a value between 0 and 100 for the transparency. 0 means completely transparent and 100 means completely opaque.
LineStyle - property is used to set the line width, dash style, line join style, line cap style for the graphic elements rendering lines like rectangle element, ellipse element, line element.
The page interactive elements inherit directly from the PageElement class. They add interactive features to the PDF document like internal and URL links, file attachments and links, popup text notes, digital signatures, etc.
The PDF Creator defines the following interactive elements that can be added to a page: DigitalSignatureElement, LinkUrlElement, InternalLinkElement, SoundLinkElement, FileLinkElement, FileAttachmentElement, TextNoteElement that can be used to add interactive features to the PDF document.