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Java PDF editor (programmatic)

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Sample Java code for using PDFTron SDK to programmatically edit an existing PDF document's page display list and the graphics state attributes on existing elements. In particular, this sample strips all images from the page and changes the text color to blue. You can also build a GUI with interactive PDF editor widgets. Some of PDFTron SDK's other functions for programmatically editing PDFs include the Cos/SDF low-level API, page manipulation, and more. Learn more about our Java PDF Library and PDF Editing & Manipulation Library.

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//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) 2001-2023 by Apryse Software Inc. All Rights Reserved.
// Consult legal.txt regarding legal and license information.
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

import com.pdftron.pdf.*;
import com.pdftron.sdf.SDFDoc;
import com.pdftron.common.PDFNetException;

import java.util.*;

import com.pdftron.sdf.Obj;

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// The sample code shows how to edit the page display list and how to modify graphics state 
// attributes on existing Elements. In particular the sample program strips all images from 
// the page, changes path fill color to red, and changes text color to blue. 
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
public class ElementEditTest {
    public static void processElements(ElementWriter writer, ElementReader reader, Set<Integer> visited)  throws PDFNetException {
        Element element;
		while ((element = reader.next()) != null) {
			switch (element.getType()) {
				case Element.e_image:
				case Element.e_inline_image:
					// remove all images by skipping them
					break;
				case Element.e_path: {
					// Set all paths to red color.
					GState gs = element.getGState();
					gs.setFillColorSpace(ColorSpace.createDeviceRGB());
					gs.setFillColor(new ColorPt(1, 0, 0));
					writer.writeElement(element);
				}
				break;
				case Element.e_text: {
					// Set all text to blue color.
					GState gs = element.getGState();
					gs.setFillColorSpace(ColorSpace.createDeviceRGB());
					gs.setFillColor(new ColorPt(0, 0, 1));
					writer.writeElement(element);
				}
				break;
				case Element.e_form: {
					writer.writeElement(element); // write Form XObject reference to current stream
					Obj form_obj = element.getXObject();
					if (!visited.contains((int) form_obj.getObjNum())) // if this XObject has not been processed
					{
						// recursively process the Form XObject
						visited.add((int) form_obj.getObjNum());
						ElementWriter new_writer = new ElementWriter();
						reader.formBegin();
						new_writer.begin(form_obj);

						reader.clearChangeList();
						new_writer.setDefaultGState(reader);  

						processElements(new_writer, reader, visited);
						new_writer.end();
						reader.end();
					}
				}
				break;
				default:
					writer.writeElement(element);
					break;
			}
		}
  
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        PDFNet.initialize(PDFTronLicense.Key());

        // Relative path to the folder containing test files.
        String input_path = "../../TestFiles/";
        String output_path = "../../TestFiles/Output/";
        String input_filename = "newsletter.pdf";
        String output_filename = "newsletter_edited.pdf";

        try {
            System.out.println("Opening the input file...");
            PDFDoc doc = new PDFDoc((input_path + input_filename));
            doc.initSecurityHandler();

            ElementWriter writer = new ElementWriter();
            ElementReader reader = new ElementReader();
            Set<Integer> visited = new TreeSet<Integer>();

            PageIterator itr = doc.getPageIterator();
            while (itr.hasNext()) {
				try{
					Page page = itr.next();
					visited.add((int) page.getSDFObj().getObjNum());

					reader.begin(page);
					writer.begin(page, ElementWriter.e_replacement, false, true, page.getResourceDict());

					processElements(writer, reader, visited);
					writer.end();
					reader.end();
				} catch (Exception e) {
					e.printStackTrace();
				}
            }

            // Save modified document
            doc.save(output_path + output_filename, SDFDoc.SaveMode.REMOVE_UNUSED, null);
            // output PDF doc
            doc.close();
            System.out.println("Done. Result saved in " + output_filename + "...");
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        PDFNet.terminate();
    }
}