iText is a

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

for creating and manipulating

PDF files Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating syste ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

and . NET. It was created in 2000 and written by Bruno Lowagie. The source code was initially distributed as open source under the

Mozilla Public License The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is a free and open-source weak copyleft license for most Mozilla Foundation software such as Firefox and Thunderbird. The MPL is developed and maintained by Mozilla, which seeks to balance the concerns of bo ...

or the GNU Library General Public License open source licenses. However, as of version 5.0.0 (released Dec 7, 2009) and version 4.2.0 (released Jul 10, 2015) it is distributed under the

GNU Affero General Public License The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU GPL version 3 and the ''Affero General Public License'' (non-GNU). It is intended fo ...

version 3. A fork of the LGPL/MPL licensed version of iText is currently being actively maintained as the

OpenPDF OpenPDF is a free Java library for creating and editing PDF files with the Mozilla Public License and the GNU Library General Public License free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software ...

library on GitHub. iText is also available through a proprietary license, distributed by iText Software NV. iText provides support for advanced PDF features such as PKI-based signatures, 40-bit and 128-bit encryption, colour correction, Tagged PDF, PDF forms (AcroForms), PDF/X, colour management via ICC profiles, and barcodes, and is used by several products and services, including Eclipse BIRT,

Jasper Reports Jasper, an Aggregate (geology), aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an Opacity (optics), opaque, impure variety of Silicon dioxide, silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in co ...

, JBoss Seam, Windward Reports, and Pdftk.

History

iText (formerly known as ''rugPDF'') was developed in the winter of 1998 as an in-house project at

Ghent University Ghent University (, abbreviated as UGent) is a Public university, public research university located in Ghent, in the East Flanders province of Belgium. Located in Flanders, Ghent University is the second largest Belgian university, consisting o ...

to create

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

document applications for student administration. Preliminary versions could only initially read and write PDF files, and they required developers to be knowledgeable of

syntax, objects, operators, and operands to work with the library. Leonard Rosenthol, PDF Architect at

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

, lists iText as one of the early milestones in the history of the openness of PDF. In 1999, Lowagie disbanded the rugPDF code and wrote a new library named iText. Lowagie created iText as a library that Java developers could use to create PDF documents without knowing PDF syntax and released it as a

Free and Open Source Software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

(FOSS) product on February 14, 2000. In the summer of 2000, Paulo Soares joined the project and is now considered one of the main developers. In late 2008, iText became available for proprietary license, and in early 2009, iText Software Corp. was formed to be the worldwide licensor of iText products. iText has since been ported to the .NET Framework under the name iTextSharp, written in C#. While it has a separate code base, it is synchronised to the main iText release schedule.

ISO standards support

iText adheres to most modern-day PDF standards, including: * ISO 32000-1 (PDF 1.7) * ISO 32000-2 (PDF-2.0) * ISO 19005-1 (

PDF/A PDF/A is an International Organization for Standardization, ISO-standardized version of the Portable Document Format (PDF) specialized for use in the archive, archiving and long-term digital preservation, preservation of electronic documents. PDF ...

-1) * ISO 19005-2 (

-2) * ISO 19005-3 (

-3) * ISO 19005-4 (

-4) * ISO 14289-1 ( PDF/UA-1) * ISO 14289-2 ( PDF/UA-2)

Extensions on ISO 32000-2

* ISO 32001 * ISO 32002 * ISO 32003 * ISO 32004

Licensing

iText was originally released under the MPL/LGPL. On December 1, 2009, with the release of iText 5, the license was switched to the

version 3. Projects that did not want to provide their source code (as required by the AGPL) could either purchase a commercial license to iText 5 or continue using previous versions of iText under the MPL/LGPL. iText Group NV claims that during the due diligence process to prepare for iText 5, several IP issues with iText 2 were discovered and fixed.

Forks

is an active open source project released under

LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

and MPL.

Commendations and Awards

In 2007, ''SOA World Magazine'' listed iText as "One of the ten open-source solutions enterprises should be using."

James Gosling James Arthur Gosling (born 19 May 1955) is a Canadian computer scientist, best known as the founder and lead designer behind the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Gosling was elected a member of the National Academy of E ...

praised the iText library, using it in a new edition of Huckster. In 2011, iText was featured at Devoxx, a community conference for Java developers. In 2013, Deloitte nominated the iText Software Group for the Technology Fast 50 Award in the Benelux. The company was ranked 10th in the Benelux and 3rd in Belgium. In 2014, iText won the BelCham Entrepreneurship Award in the category "Most Promising Company of the Year" and

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

recognized iText Group NV as the fastest growing technology company in Belgium. Subsequently, the company was ranked #28 in Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 in the EMEA region. iText was also featured on the PDF Days in Cologne, Washington DC and New York, on Java One in San Francisco, and on Devoxx in Antwerp. In 2017, iText won the International Business Awards "Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year - under 100 employees 2017". In 2017/18, the ITEXT GROUP won "The ELITE Award for Growth Strategy of the Year". In 2019, iText won a Silver Stevie in the American Business Awards for "Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year - under 100 employees". iText was also a National Winner of "Growth Strategy of the Year" at the European Business Awards.

References

External links

*{{official, https://itextpdf.com Free PDF software Free typesetting software Java (programming language) libraries C Sharp libraries Software using the GNU Affero General Public License