Add non destructive Bleeds to pdf programmatically

Question

Hi, I've working on something at the moment and we've created a pdf output using FOP which is working fine. Now however the printhouse wants to have bleeds all around the pdf.

Is it possible to resize the existing pdf and add the bleeds in a non destructive manner programmatically via a .net or java api (preferrably .net)? Although FOP doesn't support bleeds I would have assumed it should be possible to resize the pdf body and then add the bleeds around that but am unsure if what I am trying to do is possible or not as I'm not sure will the resizing give me issues with images although the majority are svg which should be ok. However the RGB images I assume would be a problem here.

The only other otions I see is to create a new version of the layout with bleeds in but I end up with double maintenance overhead of these which is why I would prefer a cleaner solution. After that is pitstop but although I know this can add bleeds am unsure it simply crops or can also resize and add bleeds.

Any help would be appreciated as i suspect I need to create new layouts but if someone could give info it would be much appreciated. Thanks, Crocked

Answer 1

We've added support for bleed to Apache FOP in the last few weeks. It's only available in the SVN Trunk (so you have to compile FOP yourself). Check out the following Wiki page for what extensions to use: http://wiki.apache.org/xmlgraphics-fop/PrepressSupport There's also an example FO file in examples/fo/advanced that demonstrates the usage. Essentially, you can now simply specify the fox:bleed="3mm" attribute on fo:simple-page-master. To get content into the bleed area just use negative coordinates, i.e. for 3mm bleed all around the page position a block-container with a background-color (or whatever you want to do) on top="-3mm" and left="-3mm" (plus absolute-position="fixed") and you're pretty much done. HTH