Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

xmpdf 0.3.2 (development)

Bug fixes and minor improvements

• exiftool detection is now cached for the rest of the session after the first successful detection rather than being repeated by every supports_exiftool() call and every internal exiftool invocation. Previously exiftoolr::configure_exiftoolr() (which spawns perl and exiftool subprocesses) was re-run several times per set_xmp()/set_docinfo() call and could account for most of their runtime. The cache still honors the xmpdf_disable_exiftool option, is invalidated if the ET_EXIFTOOL_PATH or ET_PERL_PATH environment variables change, and is bypassed if the cached command no longer exists.
• supports_exiftool() now returns a scalar when exiftoolr detects exiftool as a two-element perl + script command. Previously exiftool-backed functions could error with “the condition has length > 1”.
• exiftool detection (when exiftoolr is not installed) and pdftk detection now treat an ET_EXIFTOOL_PATH / PDFTK_PATH environment variable that is set but empty as unset and fall back to looking for the tool on the PATH.

xmpdf 0.3.1

CRAN release: 2026-08-25

New features

• New get_bookmarks_augmented() which augments get_bookmarks_pdftk()’s support for bookmark page numbers with get_bookmarks_pdftools()’s new support for whether bookmarks should start open or closed (#62).

• docinfo() objects now support arbitrary (non-standard) info dictionary entries (#7). Read/write support among the various backends is as follows:

  • get_docinfo_pdftk()/set_docinfo_pdftk() support reading and writing them.
  • get_docinfo_exiftool()/set_docinfo_exiftool() support reading and writing them.
  • get_docinfo_pdftools() supports reading them.
  • set_docinfo_gs() supports writing them.

Bug fixes and minor improvements

• Fixes set_bookmarks() bug where tempfile wasn’t being deleted if input == output (@djvill, #63).
• get_bookmarks_pdftools() now reports positive/negative count (as well as open) using pdftools::pdf_toc()’s new is_open list element (#62). This requires pdftools (>= 3.8.0).
• get_bookmarks() now prefers the new get_bookmarks_augmented() when supported.
• Calls to the pdftk command-line tool to read bookmark/documentation info metadata now time out after 60s by default (configurable via the xmpdf_pdftk_timeout option) rather than being able to hang indefinitely on a pathological pdf outline.

xmpdf 0.2.1

CRAN release: 2024-03-29

New features

• get_bookmarks_pdftools() gets pdf bookmark information using pdftools::pdf_toc() (#30). Note though due to poppler library limitations it can’t return page numbers that correspond to each bookmark. Hence get_bookmarks() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. get_bookmarks_pdftk()
  2. get_bookmarks_pdftools()

Bug fixes and minor improvements

• We can again disable old bookmarks when setting new bookmarks in set_bookmarks_gs() for the newest versions of ghostscript (#59). The new approach means we could remove some GPLv3 code and have relicensed the package under the MIT license.
• Improved support for reading/writing Unicode values in non-Unicode locales (#57).
• get_bookmarks() and get_bookmarks_pdftk() no longer returns its data frame value invisibly.

xmpdf 0.1.4

CRAN release: 2023-10-02

• Unit tests have been adjusted to prevent a CRAN R CMD check ERROR on an M1 Mac machine running macOS 14 (#58).

xmpdf 0.1.3

CRAN release: 2023-02-26

Bug fixes and minor improvements

• set_docinfo_exiftool() should now losslessly write all legal datetimes (#55). set_docinfo()’s priority order has been updated to the following:

  1. set_docinfo_exiftool()
  2. set_docinfo_gs()
  3. set_docinfo_pdftk()

• Unit tests have been adjusted to prevent CRAN R CMD check ERRORs on certain CRAN platforms that don’t have ghostscript installed or are ran in a non-Unicode locale (#56).

xmpdf 0.1.1

CRAN release: 2023-02-22

Initial features

• cat_bookmarks() concatenates a list of bookmarks into a single bookmarks data frame while updating the page numbers. Useful if wanting to concatenate multiple pdf files together and would like to preserve the bookmarks information.

• get_bookmarks() returns a data frame with pdf bookmarks information. get_bookmarks() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. get_bookmarks_pdftk() which wraps pdftk command-line tool

• set_bookmarks() sets (replaces) pdf bookmarks information. set_bookmarks() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. set_bookmarks_gs() which wraps ghostscript command-line tool
  2. set_bookmarks_pdftk() which wraps pdftk command-line tool

• docinfo() provides an R6 object to represent pdf documentation info entries.

• as_docinfo() can coerce objects into docinfo() objects. In particular there is an as_docinfo.xmp() method to coerce xmp() objects.

• get_docinfo() reads in pdf documentation info entries from pdf file(s). get_docinfo() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. get_docinfo_pdftk() which wraps pdftk command-line tool
  2. get_docinfo_exiftool() which wraps exiftool command-line tool
  3. get_docinfo_pdftools() which wraps pdftools::pdf_info()

• set_docinfo() sets pdf documentation info entries to a pdf file. set_docinfo() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. set_docinfo_gs() which wraps ghostscript command-line tool
  2. set_docinfo_pdftk() which wraps pdftk command-line tool
  3. set_docinfo_exiftool() which wraps exiftool command-line tool

• xmp() provides an R6 object to represent xmp metadata.

  • as_lang_alt() supports “language alternative” XMP tags.

• as_xmp() can coerce objects into xmp() objects. In particular there is an as_xmp.docinfo() method to coerce docinfo() objects.

• get_xmp() reads in xmp metadata from media file(s). get_xmp() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. get_xmp_exiftool() which wraps exiftool command-line tool

• set_xmp() sets xmp metadata in media file(s). set_xmp() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. set_xmp_exiftool() which wraps exiftool command-line tool

• cat_pages() concatenates (pdf) file(s) into a single output pdf. cat_pages() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. cat_pages_qpdf() which wraps qpdf::pdf_combine()
  2. cat_pages_pdftk() which wraps pdftk command-line tool
  3. cat_pages_gs() which wraps ghostscript command-line tool

• n_pages() returns the number of pages in the (pdf) file(s). n_pages() will try to use the following helper functions in the following order:

  1. n_pages_qpdf() which wraps qpdf::pdf_length()
  2. n_pages_exiftool() which wraps exiftool command-line tool
  3. n_pages_pdftk() which wraps pdftk command-line tool
  4. n_pages_gs() which wraps ghostscript command-line tool

• The following functions detect support for various higher-level features:

  • supports_get_bookmarks()
  • supports_set_bookmarks()
  • supports_get_docinfo()
  • supports_set_docinfo()
  • supports_get_xmp()
  • supports_set_xmp()
  • supports_n_pages()

• The following functions detect support for various command-line tools needed for some lower-level helper functions:

  • supports_exiftool() detects support for exiftool
  • supports_gs() detects support for ghostscript
  • supports_pdftk() detects support for pdftk

• enable_feature_message() returns a character vector with the information needed to install the requested feature. Formatted for use with rlang::abort(), rlang::warn(), or rlang::inform().

• The spdx_licenses data set contains the SPDX License List.