PDF::Declarative

The PDF::Declarative class being a wrapper around PDF::API2 (at least currently), I went looking for good examples, and found a fantastic tutorial by Rick Measham. It took some work and some extra functionality added to Class::Declarative (which was of course the point), but I can now generate a PDF equivalent to his tutorial example using PDF::Declarative. This is the code, somewhat abridged, because it contains the text for the PDF:

use Class::Declarative qw(PDF::Declarative);

pdf (displaytitle, encoding=latin1) "mynewpdf.pdf"
 author    "Michael Roberts"
 title     "PDF::Declarative Example 1"
 subject   "Building PDFs with explicitly placed elements"
 keywords  "Declarative PDF generation"
 mediabox  "105mm x 148mm"
 #bleedbox "5mm, 5mm, 100mm, 143 mm"
 cropbox   "7.5mm 7.5mm 97.5 mm 140.5mm"
 #artbox   "10mm, 10mm, 95mm, 138mm"

 page
    graphic blue_box
       fill (darkblue)
       rect "5mm, 125mm, 95mm, 18mm"
    graphic red_line
       stroke (red)
       move "5mm, 125mm"
       line "100mm, 125mm"
    text heading (flow=no, x=95mm, y=131mm, align=right, color=white, font=helvetica, bold, fontsize=18pt)
       Using PDF::Declarative
    graphic background
       stroke (lightgrey)
       circle "20mm, 45mm, 45mm"
       circle "18mm, 48mm, 43mm"
       circle "19mm, 40mm, 46mm"
    box left_column (border) "10mm, 121mm, 41mm, 111mm"
       text (lead=7pt, parspace=0, align=justify, color=black, font=times, fontsize=6)
          Perci ent ulluptat vel eum zzriure feuguero core consenis adignim...

       text (align=center, font=helvetica, bold, fontsize=6pt, color=blue)
          Enim eugiamc ommodolor sendre feum zzrit at. Ut prat. Ut lum quisi.
     
       text (align=right, font=times, color=black, fontsize=6pt)
          It augait ate magniametum irit, venim doloreet augiamet...
     
    graphic
       image "54mm, 66mm, 41mm, 55mm"
          jpeg "Portrait.jpg"

    box right_column (border, dash=2 2 1 2, color=blue) "54mm, 64mm, 41mm, 54mm"
       text (lead=7pt, parspace=0pt, align=justify, indent=5pt, fontsize=6pt, bullet=B7)
          Orpero do odipit ercilis ad er augait ing ex elit autatio....

Well, one correction: I haven't implemented bullet points yet.

Again: the above is a complete Perl program, and it generates a valid PDF file with justified text in columnar boxes. With a few extensions to the existing code, I think it's going to be just about time to release it into the wild, my first semantic module to qualify.

Current calendar time invested: 11 days. I think about a month would be necessary to do PDFs right - probably far more to do them right, but "good enough" in a month is pretty fast work. Fast enough I haven't lost interest before finishing something useful.