Reusable path objects. Path objects can be constructed independently from any page and used one or more times for stroking, filling, or clipping. Path objects can also be used as wrapping shapes (format text into irregularly shaped areas) or to place text on the path.

PDF/X-4 and PDF/X-5. PDFlib creates output according to the PDF/X-4 and PDF/X-5 standards for the graphic arts industry. Compared to the earlier PDF/X-1 and PDF/X-3 standards these are based on a newer PDF version and allow transparency and layers. PDF/X-4p and PDF/X-5pg support externally referenced ICC profiles as output intents. PDF/X-5g and PDF/X-5pg support the use of external graphical content.

Alpha channel in TIFF and PNG images. PDFlib honors image transparency (alpha channel) when importing TIFF and PNG images. Alpha channels can be used to create smooth transitions and to blend an image with the background.

JBIG2-compressed images. JBIG2 is a highly effective image compression format for black and white images. PDFlib imports single- and multi-page JBIG2 images and maintains the advantages of their compression in the generated PDF output.

Compressed object streams and cross-reference streams. PDFlib creates compressed object streams and cross-reference streams. These methods reduce the overall file size of the generated PDF documents and help PDF documents to jump over the previous 10 GB limit which holds for PDFs with conventional cross-reference tables. While 10 GB may seem an awful lot of data, an increasing number of applications in transaction printing are approach this limit. We expect to see more and more scenarios where PDFlib users want to create PDF documents in this range.

Builtin PANTONE^® Goe^TM color libraries. PDFlib supports the new PANTONE^® Goe™ color libraries with 2058 new colors for coated and uncoated paper as well as a new color naming scheme. The Goe™ color libraries have been introduced by Pantone, Inc. in 2008.

PDFlib 8 introduces a variety of new features and improvements in existing functions. The list below mentions some of the most important items:

query image details with PDF_info_image()

PPS and Block Plugin: additional Block properties which make new PDFlib features accessible via PDFlib Blocks

Unicode filenames on Unix systems

Table formatter: place path objects, annotations, and form fields in table cells

Textflow: additional formatting control options, advanced language-specific linebreaking

shadow text

retain XMP metadata in imported images

many improvements in PDF_info_font()

additional options for creating annotations

Configurable string data type for the C++ binding, e.g. wstring for Unicode support

There are many more new features; see the PDFlib Reference for details.