Roadmap

[Hopding]

Planned

Stuff that will definitely happen and has a clear path forward.

• Outlines
  • PdfOutline (Outline/Bookmarking functionality) #486
  • Merge N PDFs and Add Outline/Bookmarks with Custom Title #567
  • [Feature Request] API to create an outline (table of contents) for PDF readers #450
• Update @pdf-lib/fontkit
  • See if this fixes Invalid non-unicode glyphs width calculation on an embedded font #726
  • Can I get a list of embedded fonts in a PDF #971
  • Using a .ttc file for a font with subset #944
  • Default font kerning is off? #826
  • Please merge the latest version of the original fontkit. #808
  • Using Custom font for Language Tamil Causes regeneratorRuntime is not defined Error #785
  • Problem with Khmer Font (Unicode Font) #746
  • Filled hebrew characters unable to render unless clicked #688
  • Text rendering problem in Thai Language #675
  • bbox is undefined when embed TTC type font #634
  • Embedding woff/woff2 fonts #231
• Encryption/Decryption:
  • [Feature Request] Set document permissions #472
  • [Feature Request] API to set access privileges #443
  • [Feature Request]: Encrypt a document #243
  • [Feature Request]: Document decryption #233
• Annotations:
  • Support for annotations and page labels? #878
• Reduce bundle size:
  • Tree-shaking standard fonts possible? #566

Unplanned

Stuff that might happen but is going to take longer.

• Replace template text
  • [Feature Request]: Use PDF as a template, similar to mail merge in word #177
• Reduce memory usage by streaming i/o instead of reading everything into memory at once:
  • Failed to save PDF larger than 2G #990
  • Creating big PDF - JavaScript heap out of memory #197
  • [Feature Request]: Merging PDFs with lazy parsing #121
• Additional example documentation:
  • Table creation #973
• Improve typography and text layout support:
  • Return number of lines when using drawText maxWidth #972
  • Add a new page when text overflows on bottom of the page #970
  • Apply styles to a subset of the text being added? #865
  • [Feature Request] Variable Fonts Support #853
  • [Feature request] drawText() option to add pages as needed #774
  • Add stroke to text? #763
  • Support for Text Styles: Bold, Italic, Underline #752
  • RTL document  #657
  • Push breakTextIntoLines into public API #588
  • [Feature Request] API for text alignment #578
  • add text alignment option to PDFPage.drawText() #930
  • Text written top-to-bottom #935
• Image listing/extraction:
  • Extract images from a pdf page #83
  • Find image coordinates and which page an image is part of when extracting images #963
• Framework-specific examples:
  • Am I able to use this with Vue 3? #941
  • Typescript Errors When Installed in Angular 6 (pdf-lib ver 1.15.0) #749
• Tagged PDF support:
  • Reading order after flatten method call #895
• Page labels:
  • Changing page labels (changing page numbers in PDF) #464
  • Support for annotations and page labels? #878
• Better documentation about fonts:
  • Font issue with specific character combination #871
• Incremental updates:
  • How to put text or image in signature #834
  • Incremental Document updates #816
• Improve behavior & docs around width/height/sizing and boxes:
  • page.getHeight() returning negative value #764
  • page.getSize() with box MediaBox and CropBox values #818
• Set acrofield values by index:
  • Filling form, radio options with same name #811
• Set preferred font for acro text field:
  • Text field switches fonts when editing #674
• Override field line height & font size to make text fit:
  • Flatten does not format multiline field correctly #974
• Links & named destinations:
  • Ability to add named destinations #622
  • [Question] Add internal links to PDF attachments #858
• Page cloning:
  • [Feature Request]: Clone pages #169
• Page deletion and object removal:
  • [Feature Request]: PDF should decrease in file size after calling removePage #140
• Additional SVG options:
  • drawSvgPath (and other draw* methods) don't support line join #738
  • Support non-zero and even-odd fill rules for drawSvgPath #739
• Fix drawPage opacity option for embedded pages:
  • opacity option not working for drawPage? #553

TBD

Stuff that might be useful but needs research.

• Create/modify large documents - this may be distinct from i/o streaming in that it requires the ability to make large numbers of changes before deciding to finally serialize the document. A potential solution might simply be incremental updates. Users could simply "flush" the document periodically to avoid building up too much data in memory. Another (more complicated) solution might be to serialize objects in temp buffers/files until they need to be loaded in memory. This would likely add significant complexity though, so the incremental update solution is more appealing (especially for a first pass).
  Could supplement the incremental update approach with the ability to squash a document with incremental updates into a single "update", thereby removing the incremental updates.
  • Failed to save PDF larger than 2G #990
  • Creating big PDF - JavaScript heap out of memory #197
  • [Feature Request]: Merging PDFs with lazy parsing #121
• Transparency Groups
• Optional Content Groups
  • Does pdf-lib support creating Optional Content Groups? #907
• Publish to deno.land:
  • Why isn't PDF-LIB hosted at deno.land? #837
• XMP and custom metadata:
  • How to set custom metadata or custom properties to PDF file #807
  • Add metadata #55
• Better extract/copy/merge/split API:
  • Get Uint8Array or ArrayBuffer from PDFPage #806
  • Merge N PDFs and Add Outline/Bookmarks with Custom Title #567
  • Links are lost after combining PDFs #341
  • [Feature Request]: Preserve bookmarks when copying pages #218
• Digital signature support:
  • Add Signature Field to existing PDF #794
  • [Feature Request] Timestamp Authority with or without LTV #371
  • [Feature Request]: Support for Digital Signatures #172
• Sanitization support:
  • [Feature Request] API to sanitize documents #433
  • Sanitize pdf #790
• PDF/A support:
  • [Feature Request]: Generate PDF/A-3 documents #230
  • Support Creation and Editing of Tagged PDFs or PDF/UA #756
  • https://www.pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/StructureElementsBestPracticeGuide_2016-01-19.pdf
• Update compiler target?
  • tsconfig compiler target should be bumped from ES5 to ES2016 #747
• Reset (rotated) page's origin:
  • Reset a page's origin #587
  • DrawText and DrawImage Compensating Page Rotation #545
• API to extract graphic objects:
  • [FEATURE] Get all texts/images/shapes/SVGs from PDF page #581
• Acrofield widget documentation/examples:
  • [Feature Request] API to access coordinates and dimensions of form fields #602
• Table support:
  • [Feature Request] add drawTable similar to jspdf-autotable #382
• Linearization support

[sepsol]

Thanks for sharing the roadmap and your hard work. Would love to see the digital signature feature happen in the near future!

[joshmarinacci]

If I wanted to start working on text editing support (or at least searching for all text nodes in a doc) where would I start? (I'm a full time JS/TS engineer)

[Dude29]

Thank you for your incredible work!