PDFFlatten 0.1.0

PDFFlatten

PDFFlatten is a small VB.NET / .NET Standard 2.0 utility library for turning interactive AcroForm PDFs into plain, printable page content.

The first public API is intentionally simple: give it a Stream, get back a flattened PDF Stream.

Why this package exists

Some PDFs print badly from mobile devices or lightweight viewers because the form fields remain interactive. PDFFlatten converts those widget appearances into ordinary page content so the rendered values travel with the page.

Features

• netstandard2.0 package for broad reuse
• simple PdfFlattener.Flatten(Stream) API
• overload for caller-owned output streams
• in-house flattening implementation with no restrictive third-party PDF dependency
• generic-fixture and synthetic regression tests
• NuGet package metadata, XML docs, symbols, SourceLink, and MIT licence
• GitHub Actions for CI, packaging, and tagged releases

Install

dotnet add package PDFFlatten

Quick start

Imports PDFFlatten
Imports System.IO

Using input As Stream = File.OpenRead("input.pdf")
    Using flattened As Stream = PdfFlattener.Flatten(input)
        Using output As Stream = File.Create("flattened.pdf")
            flattened.CopyTo(output)
        End Using
    End Using
End Using

If you already manage the destination stream:

Imports PDFFlatten
Imports System.IO

Using input As Stream = File.OpenRead("input.pdf")
    Using output As Stream = File.Create("flattened.pdf")
        PdfFlattener.Flatten(input, output)
    End Using
End Using

Console sample

A minimal VB.NET console app lives in samples/PDFFlatten.Sample for local CLI testing on macOS, Linux, or Windows.

dotnet run --project samples/PDFFlatten.Sample -- GenericAcroFormFixture.pdf GenericAcroFormFixture.flattened.pdf

Supported scope in v0.1

PDFFlatten currently targets a practical first slice:

• classic cross-reference-table PDFs
• AcroForm widget annotations with normal appearance streams (/AP /N)
• flattening by replaying those appearance streams onto the page content

That covers the included synthetic AcroForm fixture and keeps the public API stable while the engine grows.

Project layout

PDFFlatten.sln
src/
  PDFFlatten/
    PDFFlatten.vbproj
    PdfFlattener.vb
    Internals/
samples/
  PDFFlatten.Sample/
    Program.vb
tests/
  PDFFlatten.Tests/
docs/
  github-setup.md
CHANGELOG.md
CONTRIBUTING.md

Build, test, and pack locally

dotnet restore
dotnet build PDFFlatten.sln --configuration Release
dotnet test PDFFlatten.sln --configuration Release
dotnet pack src/PDFFlatten/PDFFlatten.vbproj --configuration Release --output artifacts

Release flow

1. Update CHANGELOG.md.
2. Commit and push to GitHub.
3. Create a version tag like v0.1.0.
4. Push the tag.
5. GitHub Actions builds, tests, packs, creates a GitHub release, and publishes to NuGet.

git tag v0.1.0
git push origin v0.1.0

GitHub setup

Use the full walkthrough in docs/github-setup.md.

In short, you need to:

1. create the GitHub repo
2. push main
3. add the NUGET_API_KEY repository secret
4. enable Actions
5. tag releases with v*

CI/CD included

• CI: restore, build, test, pack validation
• Release: build, test, pack, GitHub release, NuGet publish

Contributing and maintenance

• contribution guide: CONTRIBUTING.md
• release notes scaffold: CHANGELOG.md
• GitHub bootstrap guide: docs/github-setup.md

Notes

• Caller-owned streams are left open.
• The synthetic PDF fixture is covered by automated tests.
• If you publish under a different GitHub owner/repo, update the package metadata URLs in src/PDFFlatten/PDFFlatten.vbproj.