Fuzzy text in PDF -> PNG pages conversion + why JAI?

Aspose.PDF Product Family
1

I’m using the trial copy of the java Word and Pdf.Kit products. I have converted a set of files to PDF from DOCX, and they look correct when viewed as PDF.


1) When I attempt to convert them to PNG files, there are blocky artifacts around the all text that make it look as though they were first converted to JPEG, then to PNG.

2) I had to separately download JAI from Sun. The redistribution license on that doesn’t look very friendly.

2.1) Isn’t JAI largely superceded by imageio? Is removing/bundling that dependency on the horizon?
2.2) Is there a way to get the image without hitting that dependency, like provide a Graphics2d for the PDF page to be written to?

I have attached the doc2pdf and pdf2images scripts, as well as the original DOCX, converted PDF, and the resulting first page PNG.

Some environment information (this is all from Aspose.Total downloaded today):

will@yogurt:~$ java -version
java version "1.6.0_29"
Java™ SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_29-b11)
Java HotSpot™ 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.4-b02, mixed mode)
will@yogurt:~$ groovy --version
Groovy Version: 1.7.0 JVM: 1.6.0_29
will@yogurt:~$ ls /home/will/.groovy/lib/
aspose-pdf-kit-4.1.0.jar jai_codec.jar libmlib_jai.so
Aspose.Words.jdk16.jar jai_core.jar mlibwrapper_jai.jar
will@yogurt:~$ uname -a
Linux yogurt 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Mon Jan 16 16:22:28 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux
will@yogurt:~$

Best Regards, and very impressive product.

2

Hi
Will,

Thank you very much for considering Aspose.

We’re investigating the mentioned issue at our end and you’ll be updated the earliest possible. As far as the JAI is concerned, I’m afraid, currently it is required for the conversion of the PDF pages to images. However, I’ll discuss with our development team to find out if we have any plans to introduce alternative methods in our future versions. You’ll be updated accordingly.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
Regards,

3

Were you able to reproduce the blocky artifacts? I have an alternate PDF -> Image library, but longer term I’d much rather have a single vendor for both DOC -> PDF and PDF -> PNG

4

Hi Will,

I have investigated this issue at my end in detail and noticed that the output produced at my end contains the text which is totally inverted. However, in the output you shared the text only contains the blocks or shades around it. I have reported this issue to our development team and logged it as PDFKITJAVA-33147 in our issue tracking system. Our team will further investigate this issue and you’ll be notified via this forum thread as soon as it is resolved.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
Regards,