[libreoffice-design] pdf import design docs?

[Michael Stahl]

On 05.10.2016 17:24, Michael Meeks wrote:
> 	Sure - so the PDF import is a bit of a mess; it currently spawns a
> remote process using poplar to parse the PDF, and then extracts (via a

it's spelled "poppler" :)

> simple text protocol) data from poplar's rendering to re-constitute into
> internal ODF callbacks to produce an internal document; at least -
> that's if I got it right =)
> 
> 	Poplar/xpdf has a GPL license and so requires all this silliness.

actually the separate process is a potential security advantage, if we
would only realize that and sandbox it properly - C++ based PDF readers
tend to accumulate quite some CVEs... (it would also be neat to do the
same with various DLP libraries)

> 	In general - it would be -way- better to pick up something like eg.
> pdfium - and add a rendering front-end there to match first, the same
> protocol (but we can do this in-process), and subsquently to simplify
> and factor lots of that madness out =) PDFium seems to be gaining
> traction in browsers (Chrome + Firefox) and so on.