PDFreactor 11.2 now available

The leading HTML to PDF conversion engine just got even better: PDFreactor 11.2 is now available.

PDFreactor 11.2 is a minor update with great new features and improvements:

The following features and changes were implemented:
  • Highcharts 9.0 is now supported.
  • The CSS property “outline-offset” is now supported. (#8310)
  • Improved support for the min-content and max-content property values in conjunction with grid layouts.
  • URLs with “about” scheme are now handled specifically.
  • The PDFreactor Webservice Jetty now contains a sample “proxy.ini”. (#8321)
The following issues were fixed:
  • PDFreactor Web Service can become slow when the document is written to disc. (#8323)
  • The aspect ratio of images that are flex items is not applied correctly in certain cases, sizing the images incorrectly or distorting them. (#8312)
  • Large images with a cyclic percentage “max-width” are too wide if they are part of a shrink-to-fit computation. (#8326)
  • Tables with “width: auto” are too wide if they have a horizontal margin. (#8327)
  • Table cell width computation is wrong in tables with “table-layout: auto” in certain cases. (#7246)
  • “box-sizing: border-box” is not evaluated for shrink-to-fit widths in several cases (including table cells).
  • Inline styles being updated for “style” attribute changes can be accidentally disrupted via DOM events.
  • The “className” DOM property of SVG elements does not return an SVGAnimatedString.
  • PDF segmentation can cause internal links to not point to the first page of the target element. (#8319)
  • PDFreactor Web Service callbacks use GET requests instead of POST. (#8324)
  • Specifying “debugSettings” “all” does not set the log level. (#8325)
  • The “disableSystemFonts” option is documented incorrectly. (#8316)

For a full list of changes and fixes see the changelog.

Important release notes und upgrading information can be found in the readme.

The PDFreactor 11 installation packages are available for download in the download area.

RealObjects PDFreactor 11 Released

The leading HTML to PDF conversion engine just got better: PDFreactor 11 is now available.

PDFreactor 11 is a major upgrade with great new features, fixes and improvements. The key new features are:

  • CSS Grid Layout
  • Page Floats
  • Continuation Markers
  • Change Bars
  • Stylable Footnotes
  • Configuration option to create inspectable PDFs. This allows to inspect the structure and layout of PDFs generated with PDFreactor similar to browser’s development tools in our new PDFreactor Inspector tool.

For more information about PDFreactor 11, please visit www.pdfreactor.com. Make sure to check out the samples, highlighting the new features.

For a full list of changes and corrections see the changelog.

Important release notes und upgrading information can be found in the readme.

Upgrading to PDFreactor 11

The new version is a free upgrade for all PDFreactor customers with a valid support and maintenance subscription. A version 11 license key is required and should be requested here. PDFreactor 11 will not work with PDFreactor 10 or older license keys.

If you do not have a valid support and maintenance subscription, please contact support@realobjects.com to purchase an upgrade.

When upgrading to PDFreactor 11, you might have to update your integration code or documents since there have been some changes in the PDFreactor APIs. Please make sure to consult our migration guide.

For more information about PDFreactor 11, please visit www.pdfreactor.com. If you have any questions about PDFreactor 11, please don’t hesitate to visit our helpdesk at https://support.realobjects.com or contact support@realobjects.com.

Adobe Inc. integrates RealObjects PDFreactor into RoboHelp®

Adobe® RoboHelp® is a technical communication solution, enabling authors to deliver Help, policy and knowledgebase content, creating media-rich experiences using HTML5 and CSS3. Adobe Inc. is an American multinational computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California. As an OEM partner Adobe Inc. integrates RealObjects PDFreactor into RoboHelp® in order to stream content as PDF, which is one option among various RoboHelp® publishing formats and channels, incl. Responsive HTML5 and Mobile App.

About Adobe

Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

About RealObjects

RealObjects (www.realobjects.com), founded in 2000, provides W3C standard-compliant, cross platform software tools for electronic publishing, content authoring and web-to-print.

Its W3C standards-based publishing solution PDFreactor is an industry-recognized flagship product, which is used for server-side conversion of HTML to PDF whenever electronic and typeset-quality print output of business content is required. It is the perfect printing component for web applications, incl. database publishing, web-to-print, PIM, DMS, MDM, DAM, WCMS, VDP etc.

RealObjects tools have been used by about 3000 corporate customers in over 40 countries, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, educational institutions as well as government and non-profit organizations. Several major accounts have deeply integrated RealObjects technology into their toolsets and solutions. A network of strategic business alliances, resellers and OEM partners/customers has been established over the years.

Contact:

Michael Jung
RealObjects, Managing Director
michael.jung@realobjects.com
Tel. +49 681 985 790

Alterra PIM-System and RealObjects PDFreactor® for Market Grounds: high-quality product catalogs “on demand”

Alterra PIM combined with RealObjects PDFreactor opens up new ways to build an uncomplicated, lean and fast print automation system – 100% supporting a modern digital strategy. Alterra PIM improves your product data and target channel accuracy; RealObjects PDFreactor is the professional tool for the best possible PDF output. With this state-of-the-art solution, which is quickly implemented and easy to use, your company will reach another milestone on the road to digitalization.

Please also read the related case study.

About Sepia

Sepia based in Düsseldorf, Germany, is one of the leading manufacturers of Product Information Management Software. Alterra® is the best system for fast and sustainable integration of a professional product marketing solution in large companies. Sepia’s far-reaching services are: determination of the requirements and integration of a PIM system including the complete rollout of the software. As result you can manage complex product data and publish it into different systems and formats.

About RealObjects

RealObjects (www.realobjects.com), founded in 2000, provides W3C standard-compliant, cross platform software tools for electronic publishing, content authoring and web-to-print.

Its W3C standards-based publishing solution PDFreactor is an industry-recognized flagship product, which is used for server-side conversion of HTML to PDF whenever electronic and typeset-quality print output of business content is required. It is the perfect printing component for web applications, incl. database publishing, web-to-print, PIM, DMS, MDM, DAM, WCMS, VDP etc.

RealObjects tools have been used by about 3000 corporate customers in over 40 countries, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, educational institutions as well as government and non-profit organizations. Several major accounts have deeply integrated RealObjects technology into their toolsets and solutions. A network of strategic business alliances, resellers and OEM partners/customers has been established over the years.

Contact:

Michael Jung
RealObjects, Managing Director
michael.jung@realobjects.com
Tel. +49 681 985 790

Case Study: The Use of RealObjects PDFreactor® to meet statutory Archiving Obligations (PDF/A) at the Internet Branch of the Sparkasse Savings Banks

According to Directive 2004/39/EC of 21.04.2004, released by the European Parliament and the Council regarding markets for financial instruments (MiFID, abbreviation for Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) banks are obliged to archive advertising content presented to their customers for certain types of products for a period of five years and to submit this in the event of legal disputes. This also applies to advertising information shown online via the Internet branches of the Sparkasse savings banks. Realization of archiving that conforms to the directive (conforming to PDF/A) presents substantial challenges to Finanz Informatik as the operator of the Internet branch.

The use of RealObjects PDFreactor allowed an approach to be realized for the Internet branch that guaranteed the fulfillment of statutory archiving requirements (PDF/A compliant) that saved a lot of expenditure compared to the alternative approaches that were investigated and that would not have been easily realizable with other PDF libraries.

Please also read the related case study.

About Finanz Informatik

Finanz Informatik, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, is the central IT service provider of Sparkasse Finance Group. Its customers include 384 Sparkasse savings banks, six state banks, DekaBank, eight state Landesbausparkasse state building societies, public sector insurers and further companies within the Sparkasse Finance Group. Finanz Informatik offers a complete IT service – from application development through infrastructure and data centre operations to consultancy, training and support.

About RealObjects

RealObjects (www.realobjects.com), founded in 2000, provides W3C standard-compliant, cross platform software tools for electronic publishing, content authoring and web-to-print.

Its W3C standards-based publishing solution PDFreactor is an industry-recognized flagship product, which is used for server-side conversion of HTML to PDF whenever electronic and typeset-quality print output of business content is required. It is the perfect printing component for web applications, incl. database publishing, web-to-print, PIM, DMS, MDM, DAM, WCMS, VDP etc.

RealObjects tools have been used by about 3000 corporate customers in over 40 countries, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, educational institutions as well as government and non-profit organizations. Several major accounts have deeply integrated RealObjects technology into their toolsets and solutions. A network of strategic business alliances, resellers and OEM partners/customers has been established over the years.

Contact:

Michael Jung
RealObjects, Managing Director
michael.jung@realobjects.com
Tel. +49 681 985 790

PDFreactor 10 Maintenance Release 10.1.10722 now available – Important Security Update

A maintenance release for PDFreactor 10 is now available. This release addresses security vulnerabilities that affect all PDFreactor versions prior to this one.

What are the vulnerabilities?

PDFreactor releases prior to 10.1.10722 are vulnerable to server-side request forgery (SSRF; CVE-2019-12153: by Sean Melia of Aon’s Cyber Solutions) and to attacks using XML external entity processing (XXE; CVE-2019-12154: by Sean Melia of Aon’s Cyber Solutions).

How can these vulnerabilities be exploited?

PDFreactor works under the assumption that all content and data (HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc.) it processes comes from trusted sources. However, this may not always be the case depending on your integration. If attackers are able to inject custom HTML, CSS or JavaScript into the content which is processed by PDFreactor, they may be able to gain access to files on the PDFreactor server or private network resources.

XXE can be exploited by specifying external entities in XML files in such a way that they load private files or network resources which is essentially an SSRF attack. In addition, malicious XML can be used for a denial-of-service (DoS) attack via the so called “billion laughs attack”.

How are these vulnerabilities addressed by this release?

PDFreactor now features security settings which can prevent these exploits:

By default PDFreactor no longer loads resources from the server’s file system. There are certain exceptions to this general security rule, so please refer to the chapter “Security” in the PDFreactor manual for a more detailed explanation. This protects against SSRF. 

When converting XML documents, PDFreactor will no longer automatically load external XML parser resources, such as DTDs, entities or XIncludes. This protects against DoS attacks using XXE.

Important! Before updating, please refer to the migration guide for more information as these changes might impact the functionality of existing integrations.

Please note that depending on the integration and usage scenario, the security settings of PDFreactor need to be configured appropriately. Please refer to the chapter “Security” in the PDFreactor manual. Also, depending on the integration and usage scenario it might be advisable to configure appropriate outbound firewall rules on the server that runs PDFreactor, to prevent access to internal network resources.

This release also includes the following changes:

  • JREs packaged with installers or containers have been updated to OpenJDK 12.0.1. (#7686)
  • Footnotes are no longer horizontally misaligned in rare cases. (#7588)
  • Images with a max-width value no longer lead to content overflowing paragraph. (#7595)
  • Documents containing large amounts of SVGs no longer cause non-terminating conversions in rare cases. (#7685)
  • JavaScript inserting ‘div’ elements into ‘span’ elements no longer causes exceptions in specific cases. (#7702)
  • Certain cases of single-line row flex containers no longer cause non-terminating layouts. (#7699)
  • JavaScript processing is no longer aborted when BoxDescription arrays are accessed with invalid indices. (#7692)
  • JavaScript processing is no longer aborted when BoxDescription arrays are accessed with invalid indices. (#7692)

For a full list of changes and corrections see the changelog.

Important release notes und upgrading information can be found in the readme.

The PDFreactor 10 installation packages are available for download in the download area.

Important PDFreactor Security Advisory

A maintenance release for PDFreactor 10 is now available. This release addresses security vulnerabilities that affect all PDFreactor versions prior to this one.

What are the vulnerabilities?

PDFreactor releases prior to 10.1.10722 are vulnerable to server-side request forgery (SSRF; CVE-2019-12153: by Sean Melia of Aon’s Cyber Solutions) and to attacks using XML external entity processing (XXE; CVE-2019-12154: by Sean Melia of Aon’s Cyber Solutions).

How can these vulnerabilities be exploited?

PDFreactor works under the assumption that all content and data (HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc.) it processes comes from trusted sources. However, this may not always be the case depending on your integration. If attackers are able to inject custom HTML, CSS or JavaScript into the content which is processed by PDFreactor, they may be able to gain access to files on the PDFreactor server or private network resources.

XXE can be exploited by specifying external entities in XML files in such a way that they load private files or network resources which is essentially an SSRF attack. In addition, malicious XML can be used for a denial-of-service (DoS) attack via the so called “billion laughs attack”.

How are these vulnerabilities addressed by this release?

PDFreactor now features security settings which can prevent these exploits:

By default PDFreactor no longer loads resources from the server’s file system. There are certain exceptions to this general security rule, so please refer to the chapter “Security” in the PDFreactor manual for a more detailed explanation. This protects against SSRF.

When converting XML documents, PDFreactor will no longer automatically load external XML parser resources, such as DTDs, entities or XIncludes. This protects against DoS attacks using XXE.

Important! Before updating, please refer to the migration guide for more information as these changes might impact the functionality of existing integrations.

Please note that depending on the integration and usage scenario, the security settings of PDFreactor need to be configured appropriately. Please refer to the chapter “Security” in the PDFreactor manual. Also, depending on the integration and usage scenario it might be advisable to configure appropriate outbound firewall rules on the server that runs PDFreactor, to prevent access to internal network resources.

If you have any questions, please contact us at support@realobjects.com or open a support ticket in our helpdesk at support.realobjects.com.

RealObjects PDFreactor + Pimcore streamline assembly of 240+ page metal fittings product catalog for web and print

Pollmann & Sohn is a 5th generation family owned business located in Kierspe, Germany. It manufactures high-quality fittings and connectors made of steel, stainless steel, nonferrous metals and aluminum, which are used in a wide range of industries. The core assortment is continuously adapted and extended to meet new market requirements. The company is well-known for its constant stock of inventory and fast delivery of products. Competent and experienced sales staff uses various tools to present the product portfolio to customers and prospective buyers. A very important sales tool is the annually published comprehensive product catalog, which features more than 3,000 building fittings and connectors.

Printing automation

Because of the large product variety tremendous work and manpower was required to create, layout and publish the product catalog manually. Changes in product data easily led to inconsistencies in sales and marketing materials.

Pimcore partner Basilicom (Berlin) advised Pollmann to create a Pimcore based web-to-print solution with a set of preconfigured templates, RealObjects PDFreactor as rendering engine and various configurable output formats. Structured data from the Pimcore PIM is the foundation to create the Pollmann catalog nowadays. It is a single-source-publishing approach. The efforts required to produce the catalog decreased significantly. At the same time the catalog quality increased, as processes are now based on the latest, complete product data. With the new system the completeness of data records can be monitored as well.

Read more

About RealObjects

RealObjects (www.realobjects.com), founded in 2000, provides W3C standard-compliant, cross platform software tools for electronic publishing, content authoring and web-to-print.

Its W3C standards-based publishing solution PDFreactor is an industry-recognized flagship product, which is used for server-side conversion of HTML to PDF whenever electronic and typeset-quality print output of business content is required. It is the perfect printing component for web applications, incl. database publishing, web-to-print, PIM, DMS, MDM, DAM, WCMS, VDP etc.

RealObjects products are used by about 3000 corporate customers in over 40 countries, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, educational institutions as well as government and nonprofit organizations. Several OEM and VAR partners as well as major accounts have deeply integrated RealObjects technology into their toolsets and solutions.

Raiffeisen Austria is counting on PDF Generation with RealObjects PDFreactor in its E-banking Solution

Personal electronic document storage is an important topic for the customers of various Raiffeisen systems. In the e-banking system „Mein ELBA“ Raiffeisen therefore aims to offer its customers the simple and fast generation of PDFs in various templates (turnover lists, advisor mailbox etc.). The interconnection within all templates in the system means that it is also important that separate implementation and layout of the PDF document is not necessary beyond the web templates, which have also be designed both professionally and responsively. Ideally the PDF should be generated from the HTML and CSS shown in the web browser.

The use of RealObjects PDFreactor allowed Raiffeisen to establish a generically usable „HTML to PDF as a service“ function in its systems without requiring a lot of time. Raiffeisen Software GmbH chose a PDFreactor „Corporate Application License“ that also enables unlimited use of any sub applications such as „Mein ELBA“ (https://banking.raiffeisen.at/) as part of the application „Digitale Regionalbank“.

Please also read the related case study.

About Raiffeisen Software GmbH

Raiffeisen Software GmbH is the software house of Raiffeisen Bankengruppe Österreich and one of the largest IT service providers in the country. For over 50 years Raiffeisen Software GmbH has been creating IT solutions that provide innovation, increased efficiency and added value to customers. Raiffeisen Software GmbH supports the daily business of Raiffeisenbanks in Austria with user-friendly IT systems. The corresponding IT solutions set standards in the financial sector.

About RealObjects

RealObjects (www.realobjects.com), founded in 2000, provides W3C standard-compliant, cross platform software tools for electronic publishing, content authoring and web-to-print.

Its W3C standards-based publishing solution PDFreactor is an industry-recognized flagship product, which is used for server-side conversion of HTML to PDF whenever electronic and typeset-quality print output of business content is required. It is the perfect printing component for web applications, incl. database publishing, web-to-print, PIM, DMS, MDM, DAM, WCMS, VDP etc.

RealObjects tools have been used by about 3000 corporate customers in over 40 countries, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, educational institutions as well as government and non-profit organizations. Several major accounts have deeply integrated RealObjects technology into their toolsets and solutions. A network of strategic business alliances, resellers and OEM partners/customers has been established over the years.

Contact:

Michael Jung
RealObjects, Managing Director
michael.jung@realobjects.com
Tel. +49 681 985 790

PDFreactor + Pimcore PIM guarantees typeset-quality product catalogs, price lists and data sheets within multi-country B2B e-commerce platform

The JAF Group is the largest timber merchant in Europe, offering around 83,000 articles (including more than 20,000 permanently in stock) at 59 sites in 19 countries all over the continent. Founded in 1948 at the company’s headquarter in Stockerau (Austria), JAF Group has become central Europe’s leading wholesaler for wood and wooden materials. It has established itself as a strong partner for the wood processing industry, the construction sector and resale. Today the company is the market leader in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia.

Printing automation

Full printing automation creates print outputs/PDFs based on templates, data and rules. Foundation for this functionality is the interoperation between Pimcore PIM and RealObjects PDFreactor. No manual setup of content is required like it generally happens with product listings, product detail pages, etc. It comes quite handy for automating the creating of data sheets, price lists, and energy labels.

The terrace designer e.g. is a special component of Pimcore eCommerce and is tightly integrated with Pimcore PIM, which uses PDFreactor as plug-in. For B2B customers, the terrace designer calculates the optimal patterns for the desired terrace floor plans and generates the building instructions, including material lists, construction plans, sketches etc. PDFreactor then generates a PDF, presenting all the info in an attractive layout.

Read more

About RealObjects

RealObjects (www.realobjects.com), founded in 2000, provides W3C standard-compliant, cross platform software tools for electronic publishing, content authoring and web-to-print.

Its W3C standards-based publishing solution PDFreactor is an industry-recognized flagship product, which is used for server-side conversion of HTML to PDF whenever electronic and typeset-quality print output of business content is required. It is the perfect printing component for web applications, incl. database publishing, web-to-print, PIM, DMS, MDM, DAM, WCMS, VDP etc.

RealObjects products are used by about 3000 corporate customers in over 40 countries, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, educational institutions as well as government and nonprofit organizations. Several OEM and VAR partners as well as major accounts have deeply integrated RealObjects technology into their toolsets and solutions.