The pCOS Cookbook

The PDFlib pCOS Cookbook is a collection of pCOS coding fragments for solving specific problems. It is maintained as a growing list of sample programs. The Cookbook topics are written in the Java language, but can easily be ported to other programming languages since the pCOS API is almost identical for all supported language bindings. Each Cookbook topic denotes the pCOS interface version required for the topic's execution.

The pCOS Cookbook topics can also easily be used with other PDFlib GmbH products since several PDFlib products include the pCOS API interface.

Availability of the pCOS Interface

The pCOS interface is available as a separate product called PDFlib pCOS. It is also offered as an integrated feature in several other PDFlib GmbH products. As the interface is extended and support for newer PDF input versions is added, the pCOS interface number is increased. The table details the pCOS interface numbers which are implemented in various product versions

pCOS interface versions implemented in PDFlib GmbH products
pCOS interface	supported PDF input version	corresponding Acrobat version	PDFlib GmbH product name and version
1	PDF 1.6	Acrobat 7	TET 2.0, 2.1
2	PDF 1.6	Acrobat 7	pCOS 1.0
3	PDF 1.7¹	Acrobat 8	PDFlib+PDI 7, PPS 7, TET 2.2, pCOS 2.0, PLOP 3.0, PLOP DS 3.0, TET 2.3
4	PDF 1.7 extension level 3	Acrobat 9, excluding AES-256 encryption	PLOP 4.0, PLOP DS 4.0, TET 3.0, TET PDF IFilter 3.0
5	PDF 1.7 extension level 3	Acrobat 9	PDFlib+PDI 8, PPS 8
6	PDF 1.7 extension level 3	Acrobat 9	TET 4.0, TET PDF IFilter 4.0
7	PDF 1.7 extension level 8²	Acrobat X	pCOS 3.0, PLOP 4.1, PLOP DS 4.1
¹ Identical to ISO 32000-1 ² Syntax and encryption method identical to ISO 32000-2, also called PDF 2.0

Download the pCOS Reference for pCOS interface 7

Browse all pCOS Cookbook Topics

Each topic can be viewed individually in the browser together with its source code, description and the output generated by pCOS.. For a complete list of all topics currently being available, see Browse all Topics.

Download full pCOS Cookbook Package

The pCOS Cookbook package contains the Java files and all required input data, as well as an Ant build file and an Eclipse project. The Cookbook topics can conveniently be compiled and run with the Java build tool Apache Ant. For more information see ant.apache.org. Alternatively, you can manually compile and run the samples. For installing and working with the pCOS Cookbook, see the "readme" file in the "doc" folder of the Cookbook Package.

As a prerequisite for compiling and executing the PDFlib pCOS Cookbook topics the pCOS binary library for Java must be installed. You can download the appropriate pCOS evaluation package here.

For the most recent changes, see the change log.

Download the PDFlib pCOS Cookbook package:

pCOS-cookbook-2010-11.tar.gz (2 MB)

pCOS-cookbook-2010-11.zip (2 MB)