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Easy-to-Use Solution for Developers
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Published
06/28/2006
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Macromedia FlashPaper
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Easy-to-Use Solution for Developers
As ColdFusion engineers, we like to think that our job is to make ColdFusion developers' lives easier. This was the exact mind set we applied while working on this task. We thought, what can we create so that all that developers need to do is wrap their HTML with a ColdFusion tag, so that conversion occurs once the browser invokes the web request? Thus, the cfdocument tag syntax was born. Here's an overview of the syntax:
<cfdocument format="flashpaper/PDF">
<!—insert your HTML, CFML, and cfdocumentitem tags->
</cfdocument>
This is it! No messy XML, Java classpath configuration, or registering native libraries. Best of all, it is a part of the ColdFusion engine. Once you install ColdFusion, this feature is available to you. You don't need to change anything in your existing HTML/CFML content.
In addition to the simplicity of the tag's functionality, we also added attributes to help you manipulate document layouts (see Table 1). The only tag requirement is the format attribute, which specifies to the ColdFusion engine which type of file to generate (PDF or FlashPaper); the others are optional attributes.
Table 1. cfdocument Attributes | Attributes | Required | Optional | Functionality |
| Format | yes | no | Dictates what format to generate (PDF or FlashPaper) |
| MarginTop | no | yes | Defaults to 0.5 inches ("Unit" attribute changes unit) |
| MarginBottom | no | yes | Defaults to 0.5 inches ("Unit" attribute changes unit) |
| MarginLeft | no | yes | Defaults to 0.5 inches ("Unit" attribute changes unit) |
| MarginRight | no | yes | Defaults to 0.5 inches ("Unit" attribute changes unit) |
| BackgroundVisible | no | yes | Allows background color or images to appear (disabling this attribute speeds document processing and limits memory usage) |
| Orientation | no | yes | Specifies landscape or portrait |
| PageType | no | yes | Specifies letter, legal, A4, A5, B4, B5, B4-JIS, B5-JIS, and custom |
| PageWidth | no | yes | Specifies page width when selecting "Custom" PageType |
| PageHeight | no | yes | Specifies page height when selecting "Custom" PageType |
| Encryption | no | yes | Sets 128-bit, 40-bit, or none (PDF-only feature) |
| OwnerPassword | no | yes | Sets owner password of the document when encryption is on |
| UserPassword | no | yes | Sets user password of the document when encryption is on |
| Permissions | no | yes | Establishes permission types |
| Unit | no | yes | Sets inches or centimeters |
| FontEmbed | no | yes | Embeds font with the document |
| Filename | no | yes | Chooses where to save the file |
| Overwrite | no | yes | Overwrites file if it exists |
| Name | no | yes | Saves result content to a CF variable |
| Scale | no | yes | Specifies zoom factor of the document |
Besides providing basic printing functionality, the cfdocument tag also had to be robust and conform to standards. Our first priority was to support HTML 4.01. This standard was required before anything else because most of our users use the HTML 4.01 standard. Second, CSS versions 1 and 2 were required because style sheets are an important part of HTML formatting, making it a feature requirement.
The remaining tasks were to provide image, HTML links, security, and accessibility support so that generated rich documents act similarly to browser-rendered content. Furthermore, to support fonts that a user specifies within HTML content, the team built the cfdocument tag to work with the ColdFusion font manager to locate necessary fonts on the system. We took some of the PDF-specific functionality and made bidirectional language (such as Arabic, Hebrew) support possible for PDF-formatted documents.
