How to debug PDF files

The first JPedal release of 2023 has just been published and with it, some exciting new features have been added to our Java PDF debugger! With a PDF debugger, you can inspect and debug PDF files easily. Read about our new release here to find out more.

Viewing Images in the PDF debugger

You can now view images in JPedal’s own PDF debugger.

The Xref Viewer and the Object Tree Viewer both allow you to view the image content of XObjects. This can be done by selecting an XObject and pressing ‘Show Image’.

The Command Window allows you to view the image content of ID and DO commands. This can be done by right-clicking on the command and pressing ‘View Image’.

Read more about viewing images in the inspector here.

Debug Breakpoints

The Limit Decode Slider in the PDF debugger now has breakpoints.

You can select a command to toggle a breakpoint and pressing the resume button will decode the page up until the next breakpoint.

Read more about breakpoints here.

Xref Viewer Improvements

The Xref Viewer has been updated and now supports cross-reference streams as well as Xref tables.

Read more about the Xref Viewer here.

Learn more

You can read more about the JPedal’s PDF debugger on our support site.

Viewer viewer = new Viewer();
viewer.setupViewer();
viewer.executeCommand(ViewerCommands.OPENFILE, "pdfFile.pdf");

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractClippedImages.writeAllClippedImagesToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", "outputImageFormat", new String[] {"imageHeightAsFloat", "subDirectoryForHeight"});

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractTextAsWordList.writeAllWordlistsToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", -1);

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ArrayList resultsForPages = FindTextInRectangle.findTextOnAllPages("/path/to/file.pdf", "textToFind");

PrintPdfPages print = new PrintPdfPages("C:/pdfs/mypdf.pdf");

if (print.openPDFFile()) {
    print.printAllPages("Printer Name");
}

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractClippedImages.writeAllClippedImagesToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", "outputImageFormat", new String[] {"imageHeightAsFloat", "subDirectoryForHeight"});