wc.pageturner

Introduction

This package is a Plone product that will add a Page Turner view to the PDF File content type. The result is that you'll be able to view PDFs much in the same way you can view them on scribd.com. It uses the open source project, Flex Paper, to display the PDFs. You can find information about it at http://flexpaper.devaldi.com/.

Requirements

This product requires that you have pdf2swf installed. pdf2swf is included in older versions of SWFTools, up to 0.9.0 (the most recent version of SWFTools is 0.9.2 dating from 2012).

Installing pdf2swf with package managers

Where possible, we recommend you use package managers to install SWFTools as there are some dependencies that need to be installed.

If you're using Ubuntu Lucid (10.04) (and possibly later versions, but not Trusty Tahr, 14.04):

sudo apt-get install swftools

On Mac, if you have MacPorts installed you can,

sudo port install swftools

On Debian, you'll need to install from source as the swftools package does not include pdf2swf: http://wiki.swftools.org/wiki/Installation

Checking that you have installed pdf2swf

Once you have installed the package, check if pdf2swf is in your path. On Linux:

which pdf2swf

On Windows: make sure pdf2swf.exe is in your path:

C:> pdf2swf

If it isn't in your path (ie. you get an error message above), you'll have to install manually; see below.

Installing pdf2swf manually

If your package manager installs a version of SWFTools that does not include pdf2swf, you can install an older version of the package that does.

These instructions for installing on Ubuntu are based on http://serverfault.com/questions/623604/install-pdf2swf-on-ubuntu-trusty-tahr14-04.

For AMD64:

wget -P /tmp/ http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/pool/partner/s/swftools/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

chmod a+x /tmp/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i /tmp/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

For i386:

wget -P /tmp/ http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/pool/partner/s/swftools/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb

chmod a+x /tmp/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i /tmp/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb

Other architectures are available at http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/pool/partner/s/swftools/

If all else fails, you can download SWFTools from http://www.swftools.org/ and install it yourself.

How-To

• Add your PDF as a File to your Plone site (Add New -> File menu).

• Edit the various setting of the Page turner by clicking the Page Turner Settings button.

• To turn off auto-selecting of the page turner layout for PDF files, go to ZMI -> portal_properties -> site_properties and customize the page_turner_auto_select_layout property to off.

• PDFs that were on your site before you activated this add-on will need to be converted (you will see an error message on each File until you convert it). To convert an individual PDF, click the Flexpaper Convert button. Large PDFs will take some time to be converted. To convert all PDFs on your site, go to your site's URL and append /@@convertall-to-flexpaper, e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/@@convertall-to-flexpaper

Tested With

• Plone 3 and 4

• Also works with Blob storage transparently so the converted PDFs aren't stored in the ZODB

Credits

Credit goes to Wildcard Corp and Talin Senner for sponsoring and designing the product, and Nathan Van Gheem for coding it.

Asynchronous Conversion

With large PDFs the conversion to Flex Paper can take some time. If you have plone.app.async installed and configured, this conversion will happen asynchronously.

Convert All

If you'd like to convert all the existing documents on your site, visit the URL http://www.yoursite.com/@@convertall-to-flexpaper

TODO

• Add support for Dexterity content types. Maybe via a behavior.

Versions

Flexpaper: 1.5.1

Upgrade Path

For a more fully featured add-on, see https://pypi.python.org/pypi/collective.documentviewer

Changelog

1.3.7 ~ 2015-06-03

• more detail for instructions [tkimnguyen]

• only queue conversion job if layout is page-turner [vangheem]

1.3.6 ~ 2013-05-07

• 4.3 template compatibility fix. [vangheem]

1.3.5 ~ 2013-05-07

• Remove zope.app.* dependencies. [esteele]

1.3.4 ~ 2012-10-02

• add back 1.3.2 change that was missed [vangheem]

1.3.3 ~ 2012-10-02

• changed 'cachebusting' to be false for all browsers [Joel.Kleier]

1.3.2 ~ 2012-07-31

• fix wmode used

1.3.1 ~ 2012-06-19

• fix uninstall profile

1.3.0 ~ 2012-04-11

• upgrade to flexpaper 1.5.1

1.2.5 ~ 2012-04-06

• fix js error when rendering pdf. [vangheem]

1.2.4 ~ 2011-10-16

• Plone 4.1 fix [vangheem]

1.2.3 ~ 2011-07-28

• fix default value for fit_width so the global setting will work now. [vangheem]

1.2.2 ~ 2011-04-01

• reference some of the resources off the portal root [vangheem]

1.2.1rc2 ~ 2011-04-01

• fixes for windows users. [fhurter]

1.2.1rc1 ~ 2011-03-14

• fit page width for flex paper setting integration [espen]

1.2b1 ~ 2011-02-20

• re-convert pdf is password is provided on save of page turner settings

1.2a1 ~ 2011-02-15

• provide global settings configuration

• provide ability to enter password for encrypted pdf

• provide ability to convert all pdfs on the site to flex paper

1.1b1 ~ 2010-12-31

• work seamlessly with new version of wildcard.pdfpal so it will only create a flex paper after the new searchable PDF is provided.

• provide ability to provide extra command line options when converting the PDF.

1.0b4 ~ 2010-12-06

• add wmode transparent for flash params so that flash does not overlap other elements.

• switch to more accurate time format

• remove temp files even when there was an error

1.0b3 ~ 2010-12-02

• remove tmp files after using them on flex paper gen

1.0b2 ~ 2010-12-02

• added support for plone.app.async. Flex Paper conversion can now happen in the background. [vangheem]

1.0b1 ~ 2010-11-29

• update flexpaper to 1.4.0 [vangheem]

• auto select page turner view for pdf files now and make configurable via portal_properties -> site_properties [vangheem]

• better error checking when converting PDFs. pdf2swf still seems very touchy for converting some PDFs... [vangheem]

• Added progressive loading, print enabled, full screen visible, search tools visible and cursor tools visible options [vangheem]

0.6

• Fix for storing blobs. [davisagli]

• Don't swallow exceptions while converting; log them. [davisagli]

• Use the subprocess module instead of popen2 to communicate with pdf2swf. [davisagli]

• Protect the page turner settings page with the "Modify view template" permission. [davisagli]

• Avoid purging existing view methods for the File type on installation. [davisagli]

0.5 ~ 2010-05-21

• Initial release

Road Map

1.0

• option to automatically enable the page turner view if PDF format is detected for a new file

• support other formats besides PDF--is this possible?