Draw AFP

[maxvazquezg]

Hi, I was using your code and it's fantastic! Congratulations! But I have some questions.

Do you have some tutorial? Because I need convert the AFP to Image and I see that option where you preview the file, but I can't convert the e.Graphics to Bitmap, do you have some method?

Another cuestion is about the method AddText(), I dont have idea how to implement and I would like add some text in the file.

Could you help me, please?

I know this is not an Issue but I didn't know how to contact you.

Greetings!

[Shaosil]

Hi maxvazquezg,

Thanks for the compliments - Unfortunately, I don't have any detailed tutorials. The best I can do is point you to the related documentation (in the Reference Manuals folder). However, I believe I can answer your questions.

1. I have a couple different ways of interpreting the image question.

   a) In the first scenario, you have an entire AFP file which defines an image (IOCA or IM), and you want to save it as a bitmap. In this case, you already mentioned my previewer, and it does that for you. Just load it up in the UI and click "Preview", and it will create bitmap files in the output directory.

   b) You may also be asking how to do this programmatically. This has a couple different answers, but first, you would need to load a file (using the RenderableAFPFile class) and calling LoadData for your afp file path, and pass true to the parse data parameter. This will cache images (among other things) into dictionaries on the class. From here, you may access the ParsedIMImages or ParsedImages (IOCA) dictionary properties depending on the image format.

   i) For IOCA images, the process is straightforward. For each of the values in each key in the ParsedImages dictionary, simply create a new System.Drawing.Bitmap object and pass the current value's Data property as a memory stream in the Bitmap constructor. Assuming the IOCA object is data .NET recognizes (JPG, TIFF, PNG, etc), you will have a bitmap object to do with what you will.

   ii) For IM images, There is a predefined method that will help you out. For each key/value pair in the ParsedIMImages dictionary, call the static IMImageCell.GenerateBitmap function, passing the current container's IID field and a list of cells to process. See the btnPreview_Click function in FrmMain.cs for details on how to call that. At any rate, that function will return a Bitmap object as well.

2. Adding text is probably easier than I'm about to make it sound, because really all it boils down to is calling a single function on a loaded AFP object. It's the parameters that are tricky. I'll try to explain it.

Once you have loaded an AFP file into memory (create a new AFPFile object and pass it a file path, parse its data), you will need to find the container of the page on which you wish to add text. Something like afpFile.Fields.OfType<BPG>().First().LowestLevelContainer should do the trick. Second, you will need to know what font character set you will be using. Assuming you will use an existing font, look at the MCF field on the respective page, and note the 8 character identifiers of mapped font character sets. Third, you need to give it a value for inline (in this case, horizontal axis), and baseline (vertical). The exact numbers you need would take me several pages to truly explain, so the best I can tell you here is to experiment. Next, pass a text string of the text you want to add. Finally, pass the corresponding encoding. In your case, I think Encoding.GetEncoding(1252) would work, but again, double check the MCF code page value that corresponds to the font character set you want to use.

That's basically it. I realize the parameters are confusing, but it's currently the best I could do to support the complex architecture of PTOCA data. Blame IBM :)