I'm creating a Web-based label printing system. For every label, there should be a unique s/n. So when a user decided to create 1000 labels (with the same data), all of it should have unique s/n, therefore the pdf will have 1000 pages, which increases the file size.
My problem is when the user decided to create more copies, the file size will get bigger.
Is there any way that I can reduce the file size of the pdf using Itext? Or is there any way that I can generated the pdf and output it in the browser without saving it neither to server/client's HDD?
Thanks for the help!
On approach is to compress the file. It should be highly compressible.
(I imagine that you should be able to generate the PDF on the server side without writing it to disc, though you could use a lot of memory / Java heap in the process. I don't think it is possible to deliver a PDF to the browser without the file going to the client PC's hard drive in some form.)
If everything except the s/n is the same for the thousands of labels, you only have to add the equal things one time as a template and put the s/n text on top of it.
Take a look at PDFTemplate in itext. If I recall correctly that creates and XObject for the recurring drawing/label/image.... and it is exactly the same object every time you use it.
Even with thousands of labels, the only thing that grows your document size is the s/n (and every page) but the graphics or text of the 'label' is only added once. That should reduce your file size.
