Tip to convert TIF file to pdf using iText library.

I am going to explain how we can convert a TIF/TIFF file to PDF document using iText API. Before moving to the main subject of this tip I would like to give a small introduction of iText API.

What is iText ??

iText is a library that allows you to create and manipulate PDF documents. It enables developers looking to enhance web and other applications with dynamic PDF document generation and/or manipulation. You can create PDF documents from scratch with data from database, an XML file, or any other data source.

iText is available in Java as well as in C#.

What is TIF/TIFF file format ??

TIF/TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) file is high-quality graphics format often used for storing images with many colors, such as digital photos. It support for layers and multiple pages.

In one line you can say TIF/TIFF is nothing but a multipage image. Now I think atleast we have understood why iText and what is TIF/TIFF file format?

So we move to the main subject of this tip. Here we will see how we can esily convert a TIF to PDF using iText library.

I would like to explain it via an example code.

CODE::

/**

* Method to convert a TIFF to PDF directly.

*/

public void generatePDFFromTIF() throws DocumentException,IOException {

/*

* RandomAccessFileOrArray is a class from iText API which is representing our TIF file here.

* We are passing or TIF in the constructor of RandomAccessFileOrArray class. We need to pass full path of TIF file as string.

* I am assuming it in “D:\” drive of windows.

* /

RandomAccessFileOrArray myTifFile = new RandomAccessFileOrArray(“D:/tiffFileName.tif”);

/*

* Now find number of pages (images) in TIF file using static method of TiffImage class. TiffImage class is from iText API.

*/

int numberOfPages = TiffImage.getNumberOfPages(myTifFile);

Document TiffToPDF = new Document();

/*

* Now use a static method getInstance() from PdfWriter class to get an instance of PdfWriter class to write data from TIF to this PDF.

* As we can see the first parameter is Document instance that we created above and second parameter is an instance of FileOutputStream.

* We are passing full path of PDF under constructor of FileOutputStream. FileOutputStream creats an stream to pdf on that path to write data in PDF file.

*/

PdfWriter.getInstance(TiffToPDF, new FileOutputStream(“D:/tiffFileName.pdf”));

// We must open the Document before writing anything to pdf.

TiffToPDF.open();

/*

* Now itterate over pages under TIF file. Fetching images one by one from TIF creates an Image object and write that Image instance to PDF Document.

*/

for(int tiffImageCounter = 1;tiffImageCounter <= numberOfPages;tiffImageCounter++) {

/* This Image class is not from java awt package. This Image class is from iText API.

* We need to call static method getTiffImage() of TiffImage class by passing the TIf file and tiffImageCounter.

*/

Image img = TiffImage.getTiffImage(myTiffFile, tiffImageCounter);

// Now just add this Image instance to TiffToPDF Document using add() method.

TiffToPDF.add(img);

} //close loop

//must close the Document

TiffToPDF.close();

//We are done. Our pdf is created at “D:/tiffFileName.pdf”.

}

The above code explains everything in itself. I hope its very clear to create PDF from a TIF using iText.