Save a PDF document to disk

Serialises an in-memory pdfium_doc (typically produced by pdf_doc_open() with readwrite = TRUE and one or more mutators) to a file. Wraps FPDF_SaveAsCopy and FPDF_SaveWithVersion.

Usage

pdf_save(
  doc,
  file,
  incremental = FALSE,
  remove_security = FALSE,
  subset_new_fonts = TRUE,
  version = NULL
)

Arguments

doc

A pdfium_doc from pdf_doc_open() or pdf_doc_new().

file

Destination path. The directory must exist.

incremental

Logical. If TRUE, append an incremental update preserving the original byte layout (required for signed-PDF workflows). If FALSE (default), rewrite the whole file.

remove_security

Logical. If TRUE, strip the encryption dictionary from the saved copy. Defaults FALSE. Use with caution.

subset_new_fonts

Logical. If TRUE (default), subset newly-embedded fonts the same way Acrobat does. Set FALSE to embed full font tables.

version

Integer or NULL. The PDF version in PDFium's "10 * major + minor" form (e.g. 17 for PDF 1.7). NULL (default) preserves the input file's declared version.

Value

Invisibly returns file, the path written to.

Details

pdf_save() writes atomically: PDFium's bytes go into a tempfile in the destination directory, and on success the tempfile is renamed over file. If the save fails mid-write, the original file (if any) is preserved untouched.

Works on read-only documents too — opening a PDF, calling pdf_save(), and re-opening the result is a way to "normalise" a PDF (rebuild the xref table, etc.) without modifying its content.

See also

pdf_save_to_raw() for in-memory output; pdf_doc_open() for the read side; pdf_doc_new() for a fresh document.