Samples and examples in this document are only for AEM Forms on JEE environment.
You can use the Assembler Service API to assemble multiple PDF documents into a single PDF document. The following illustration shows three PDF documents being merged into a single PDF document.
To assemble two or more PDF documents into a single PDF document, you need a DDX document. A DDX document describes the PDF document that the Assembler service produces. That is, the DDX document instructs the Assembler service what actions to perform.
For the purpose of this discussion, assume that the following DDX document is used.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<DDX xmlns="https://ns.adobe.com/DDX/1.0/">
<PDF result="out.pdf">
<PDF source="map.pdf" />
<PDF source="directions.pdf" />
</PDF>
</DDX>
This DDX document merges two PDF documents named map.pdf and directions.pdf into a single PDF document.
To see a DDX document that disassembles a PDF document, see Programmatically Disassembling PDF Documents.
For more information about the Assembler service, see Services Reference for AEM Forms.
For more information about a DDX document, see Assembler Service and DDX Reference.
When you add headers and footers during the assembling of large documents, you may encounter an OutOfMemory
error and the files will not be assembled. To reduce the chance of this problem occurring, add a DDXProcessorSetting
element to your DDX document, as shown in the following example.
<DDXProcessorSetting name="checkpoint" value="2000" />
You can add this element as a child of the DDX
element or as a child of a PDF result
element. The default value for this setting is 0 (zero), which turns checkpointing off and the DDX behaves as if the DDXProcessorSetting
element is not present. If you have encountered an OutOfMemory
error, you may need to set the value to an integer, typically between 500 and 5000. A small checkpoint value results in more frequent checkpointing.
To assemble a single PDF document from multiple PDF documents, perform the following tasks:
Include project files
Include the necessary files in your development project. If you are creating a client application by using Java, include the necessary JAR files. If you are using web services, ensure that you include the proxy files.
The following JAR files must be added to your project’s class path:
if AEM Forms is deployed on a supported J2EE application server other than JBoss, you must replace the adobe-utilities.jar and jbossall-client.jar files with JAR files that are specific to the J2EE application server on which AEM Forms is deployed.
Create a PDF Assembler client
Before you can programmatically perform an Assembler operation, you must create an Assembler client.
Reference an existing DDX document
A DDX document must be referenced to assemble a PDF document. For example, consider the DDX document that was introduced in this section. This DDX document instructs the Assembler service to merge two PDF documents into a single PDF document.
Reference input PDF documents
Reference input PDF documents that you want to pass to the Assembler service. For example, if you want to pass two input PDF documents named Map and Directions, you must pass the corresponding PDF files.
Both the map.pdf file and the directions.pdf file must be placed in a collection object. The name of the key must match the value of the PDF source attribute in the DDX document. It does not matter what the name of the PDF file is if the key and the source attribute in the DDX document match.
An AssemblerResult
object, which contains a collection object, is returned if you invoke the invokeDDX
operation. This operation is used when you pass two or more input PDF documents to the Assembler service. However, if you pass only one input PDF to the Assembler service and expect only one return document, invoke the invokeOneDocument
operation. When invoking this operation, a single document is returned. For information about using this operation, see Assembling Encrypted PDF Documents.
Set run-time options
You can set run-time options that control the behaviour of the Assembler service while it performs a job. For example, you can set an option that instructs the Assembler service to continue processing a job if an error is encountered. For information about the run-time options that you can set, see the AssemblerOptionSpec
class reference in AEM Forms API Reference.
Assemble the input PDF documents
After you create the service client, reference a DDX file, create a collection object that stores input PDF documents, and set run-time options, you can invoke the DDX operation. When using the DDX document specified in this section, the map.pdf and direction.pdf files are merged into one PDF document.
Extract the results
The Assembler service returns a java.util.Map
object, which can be obtained from the AssemblerResult
object, and that contains operation results. The returned java.util.Map
object contains the resultant documents and any exceptions.
The following table summarizes some of the key values and object types that can be in the returned java.util.Map
object.
Key value |
Object type |
Description |
---|---|---|
|
|
Contains the resultant documents that are specified in a DDX resultant element |
|
|
Contains any exception for the document |
|
|
Contains the job log |
See also
Including AEM Forms Java library files
Programmatically Disassembling PDF Documents
Assemble a PDF document by using the Assembler Service API (Java):
Include project files.
Include client JAR files, such as adobe-assembler-client.jar, in your Java project’s class path.
Create a PDF Assembler client.
ServiceClientFactory
object that contains connection properties.AssemblerServiceClient
object by using its constructor and passing the ServiceClientFactory
object.Reference an existing DDX document.
java.io.FileInputStream
object that represents the DDX document by using its constructor and passing a string value that specifies the location of the DDX file.com.adobe.idp.Document
object by using its constructor and passing the java.io.FileInputStream
object.Reference input PDF documents.
Create a java.util.Map
object that is used to store input PDF documents by using a HashMap
constructor.
For each input PDF document, create a java.io.FileInputStream
object by using its constructor and passing the location of the input PDF document.
For each input PDF document, create a com.adobe.idp.Document
object and pass the java.io.FileInputStream
object that contains the PDF document.
For each input document, add an entry to the java.util.Map
object by invoking its put
method and passing the following arguments:
com.adobe.idp.Document
object (or java.util.List
object that specifies multiple documents) that contains the source PDF document.Set run-time options.
AssemblerOptionSpec
object that stores run-time options by using its constructor.AssemblerOptionSpec
object. For example, to instruct the Assembler service to continue processing a job when an error occurs, invoke the AssemblerOptionSpec
object’s setFailOnError
method and pass false
.Assemble the input PDF documents.
Invoke the AssemblerServiceClient
object’s invokeDDX
method and pass the following required values:
com.adobe.idp.Document
object that represents the DDX document to be usedjava.util.Map
object that contains the input PDF files to be assembledcom.adobe.livecycle.assembler.client.AssemblerOptionSpec
object that specifies the run-time options, including default font and job log levelThe invokeDDX
method returns a com.adobe.livecycle.assembler.client.AssemblerResult
object that contains the results of the job and any exceptions that occurred.
Extract the results.
To obtain the newly created PDF document, perform the following actions:
AssemblerResult
object’s getDocuments
method. This returns a java.util.Map
object.java.util.Map
object until you find the resultant com.adobe.idp.Document
object. (You can use the PDF result element specified in the DDX document to get the document.)com.adobe.idp.Document
object’s copyToFile
method to extract the PDF document.If LOG_LEVEL
was set to produce a log, you can extract the log by using the AssemblerResult
object’s getJobLog
method.
See also
Quick Start (SOAP mode): Assembling a PDF document using the Java API
Including AEM Forms Java library files
Assemble PDF documents by using the Assembler Service API (web service):
Include project files.
Create a Microsoft .NET project that uses MTOM. Ensure that you use the following WSDL definition: http://localhost:8080/soap/services/AssemblerService?WSDL&lc_version=9.0.1
.
Replace localhost
with the IP address of the server hosting AEM Forms.
Create a PDF Assembler client.
Create an AssemblerServiceClient
object by using its default constructor.
Create an AssemblerServiceClient.Endpoint.Address
object by using the System.ServiceModel.EndpointAddress
constructor. Pass a string value that specifies the WSDL to the AEM Forms service (for example, http://localhost:8080/soap/services/AssemblerService?blob=mtom
). You do not need to use the lc_version
attribute. This attribute is used when you create a service reference.
Create a System.ServiceModel.BasicHttpBinding
object by getting the value of the AssemblerServiceClient.Endpoint.Binding
field. Cast the return value to BasicHttpBinding
.
Set the System.ServiceModel.BasicHttpBinding
object’s MessageEncoding
field to WSMessageEncoding.Mtom
. This value ensures that MTOM is used.
Enable basic HTTP authentication by performing the following tasks:
AssemblerServiceClient.ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName
.AssemblerServiceClient.ClientCredentials.UserName.Password
.HttpClientCredentialType.Basic
to the field BasicHttpBindingSecurity.Transport.ClientCredentialType
.BasicHttpSecurityMode.TransportCredentialOnly
to the field BasicHttpBindingSecurity.Security.Mode
.Reference an existing DDX document.
BLOB
object by using its constructor. The BLOB
object is used to store the DDX document.System.IO.FileStream
object by invoking its constructor and passing a string value that represents the file location of the DDX document and the mode in which to open the file.System.IO.FileStream
object. You can determine the size of the byte array by getting the System.IO.FileStream
object’s Length
property.System.IO.FileStream
object’s Read
method and passing the byte array, the starting position, and the stream length to read.BLOB
object by assigning its MTOM
property with the contents of the byte array.Reference input PDF documents.
BLOB
object by using its constructor. The BLOB
object is used to store the input PDF document.System.IO.FileStream
object by invoking its constructor and passing a string value that represents the file location of the input PDF document and the mode in which to open the file.System.IO.FileStream
object. You can determine the size of the byte array by getting the System.IO.FileStream
object’s Length
property.System.IO.FileStream
object’s Read
method. Pass the byte array, the starting position, and the stream length to read.BLOB
object by assigning its MTOM
field with the contents of the byte array.MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType
object. This collection object is used to store input PDF documents.MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType_Item
object. For example, if two input PDF documents are used, create two MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType_Item
objects.MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType_Item
object’s key
field. This value must match the value of the PDF source element specified in the DDX document. (Perform this task for each input PDF document.)BLOB
object that stores the PDF document to the MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType_Item
object’s value
field. (Perform this task for each input PDF document.)MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType_Item
object to the MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType
object. Invoke the MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType
object’s Add
method and pass the MyMapOf_xsd_string_To_xsd_anyType
object. (Perform this task for each input PDF document.)Set run-time options.
AssemblerOptionSpec
object that stores run-time options by using its constructor.AssemblerOptionSpec
object. For example, to instruct the Assembler service to continue processing a job when an error occurs, assign false
to the AssemblerOptionSpec
object’s failOnError
data member.Assemble the input PDF documents.
Invoke the AssemblerServiceClient
object’s invoke
method and pass the following values:
BLOB
object that represents the DDX document.mapItem
array that contains the input PDF documents. Its keys must match the names of the PDF source files, and its values must be the BLOB
objects that correspond to those files.AssemblerOptionSpec
object that specifies run-time options.The invoke
method returns an AssemblerResult
object that contains the results of the job and any exceptions that may have occurred.
Extract the results.
To obtain the newly created PDF document, perform the following actions:
AssemblerResult
object’s documents
field, which is a Map
object that contains the result PDF documents.Map
object until you find the key that matches the name of the resultant document. Then cast that array member’s value
to a BLOB
.BLOB
object’s MTOM
property. This returns an array of bytes that you can write out to a PDF file.If LOG_LEVEL
was set to produce a log, you can extract the log by getting the value of the AssemblerResult
object’s jobLog
data member.
See also