Comments on: How can I insert text into an existing PDF using Ghostscript?

Question: How can I insert text into an existing PDF using Ghostscript?

jackofsaxons — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:25:10 -0800

How can I insert text into an existing PDF using Ghostscript?

I'm attempting to write a bash script that will take the output of the "tree" command, and insert it into an existing PDF template. The script works, bu I haven't been able to figure out how to take the output of it and stick it into this template. Does anyone know of a solution that does no use any additional software other than Ghostscript?

By: flug

flug — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:21:18 -0800

As a thought, postscript is usually easier to work with than PDF.

So start with a postscript template, insert your script output (which may need to be suitably massaged by inserting certain postscript commands as necessary), then send the resulting postscript to Ghostscript, which can turn it into a PDF.

You might be able to use something like groff? Working with groff is going to be much simpler yet than even messing with postscript. If your script could produce the text with needed groff formatting commands embedded, then you could send that output to groff to make PS, and the resulting PS output to Ghostscript to create a PDF.

Wiki for a bit more.

By: devilsbrigade

devilsbrigade — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:54:02 -0800

Even better, could you make the PDF template with latex?

By: donut

donut — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:26:37 -0800

Perhaps pdftk will help. I googled for pdftk insert text into pdf and found this this, where they use pdftk to insert data into a pdf form.