PDFUniversal

PDFUniversal is a cross-platform software library and toolset designed for working with PDF documents. It provides a unified API intended to span multiple programming languages and environments, enabling developers to create, modify, analyze, render, and automate tasks involving PDF files. The project aims to simplify integrating PDF functionality into applications, workflows, and services by offering a common interface across platforms.

Its core features include programmatic creation of PDFs from text and images, editing existing documents, merging and splitting files, annotating and commenting, filling and validating forms, redacting content, applying encryption and digital signatures, and performing text extraction. Optional OCR and accessibility tagging support are commonly offered through pluggable backends, expanding capabilities for scanned documents and assistive technologies.

PDFUniversal follows a modular architecture with a core processing library and language bindings for popular environments such as C++, Java, Python, and JavaScript. It emphasizes standards compliance, targeting the PDF reference ISO 32000. Rendering and advanced processing may be provided by optional backends (for example, open-source renderers and OCR engines), enabling flexible deployment from servers to embedded systems.

Distribution ranges from open-source releases to commercial packages, with licensing terms varying by edition. Documentation, API references, and community-contributed examples are typically hosted on an official project site or repository, guiding developers in integration and deployment.

Since its inception, PDFUniversal has been used by individuals and organizations to automate document workflows, perform batch conversions, and integrate PDF processing into software products. The project is supported by a community of contributors and stakeholders and is subject to ongoing development and updates.

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