Introduction
We recently published a new technical article on the iText Knowledge Base. In this article, Software Engineer Vitali Prudnikovich goes into detail on how continuous support for GraalVM Native Image compilation was implemented in iText Core. He also talks about the background of how and why we began looking at GraalVM’s Native Image technology, and our continuing development in this area – such as the recent expansion to include support for the pdfHTML add-on, which was included in the iText Suite 9.1 release.
Vitali is part of the in-house team working on development of the iText SDK, and as such was heavily involved in implementing support for Native Image compilation. In a future article, he’ll also look at developing a real-world example using the AWS Lambda serverless compute service.
"Technical Tales": A New Source for Insights from iText Developers
Vitali’s article is just one in a continuing series of technical content which will live on our Knowledge Base alongside the existing examples, tutorials, and FAQs etc. These will be grouped under a general “Technical Tales” category, containing articles both large and small.
Of course. you’ll still see regular posts here with a technical focus, but the aim is to efficiently share insights, tips, and deep dives directly from the minds behind iText. We want to give iText’s in-house developers and related technical people a freer rein to write about the stuff that interests them – and hopefully you too!
Reinforcing Our Community Connections
With a continuous presence in the open-source space over the past 25 years, iText has a strong connection to the development community. Since the very beginning. developers from around the world have contributed to iText’s codebase, fostering a collaborative environment of sharing improvements and innovations within the community.
This spirit of community collaboration continues to this day. It’s important to remember that while we offer commercial licensing for iText, we also maintain open-source versions of iText Core and the pdfHTML, pdfSweep, and pdfOCR add-ons on platforms such as Maven, NuGet, and GitHub. This dual licensing model ensures that iText remains accessible to the community while also supporting its sustainability. With our regular quarterly releases, every developer gets access to the same bleeding-edge tools and technology as our commercial customers, enabling them to push the industry as a whole forward.
Aside from being available to use freely under the AGPLv3 licensing terms, there is no difference in capabilities between the open source and commercial versions. The only real differences are commercial licensing gives you access to the closed source pdfCalligraph, pdfOptimizer, and pdfXFA add-ons, and a direct line to world-class support from our in-house teams.
Support for iText’s open-source users is widely available from communities such as Stack Overflow, which has long been a valuable resource for iText developers – both old and new. And of course, we have extensive documentation, tutorials, and examples freely available; whether in our GitHub repositories, or our API documentation and Knowledge Base sites.
Enabling our developers a more direct method of communicating with the iText community at large will only strengthen and solidify these connections; adding to the wealth of freely available iText resources.
25 Years of iText: A Journey Fueled by Community and Collaboration
The innovation and success of iText over the last 25 years is an incredible achievement, but we wouldn’t be here today without the support of the community. Open-source collaboration is a two-way relationship of course, and we’re continually interacting with the community – whether answering questions on Stack Overflow, discussing pull requests, or attending developer conventions around the world.
Since iText is backed by a commercial entity in Apryse, we’re able to dedicate significant time and resources to its development. And as part of the wider Apryse family, we’ve also continued our close involvement in the PDF Association's Technical Working Groups and the ISO Technical Committees. This results in not just the development of new PDF standards and specifications, but also initiatives such as sponsoring no-cost access to the ISO PDF 2.0 specification and related standards. These efforts enable all PDF developers and uses access to the most up-to-date specification of the PDF format, including the latest, state-of-the-art cryptography standards.
The iText SDK has a reputation as being by developers, for developers. Stay tuned for a wealth of valuable content with that same ethos, enabling you to make the most of iText's powerful capabilities.
