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jgresula

69 karma · joined June 27, 2009

pdfcrowd.com founder -- jgresula@gmail.com
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jgresula··on Python Generator Tricks
Here is a great practical intro to generators: Generator Tricks for Systems Programmers - http://www.dabeaz.com/generators-uk/GeneratorsUK.pdf
jgresula··on Ask HN: Heard of any good startups?
My own startup: Pdfcrowd http://pdfcrowd.com

It lets you convert HTML to PDF online - either directly in your browser or in your apps using the API.

jgresula··on Zed Shaw on C++
http://www.swig.org/ automatically binds existing C++ software to other programming languages. I use it a lot to call C++ from Python and Java and I must say it is really amazing piece of software.

And there is also Boost.Python.

jgresula··on Ask HN: Any Need for Office to PDF Conversion API?
A shameless plug for my project, but hopefully you might find it useful.

I run http://pdfcrowd.com which is an online service providing html to pdf API. It lets you convert a web page to pdf quite easily - have look at examples at http://pdfcrowd.com/doc/api/

jgresula··on Ask HN: How to get major bloggers write about my bootstrapped startup?
Try sites with smaller audiences to get at least some coverage. If your app is good big blogs might notice and write about it.

My personal experience: I submitted my app to MoMB - just a short email. The next day it appeared on Lifehacker (via Life Rocks).

Good luck with your venture.

jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
There is no doubt that many developers will use wkhtmltopdf.

I think that the Pdfcrowd's selling points could be 1) wide availability - only HTTP is needed so it can be used theoretically on any platform 2) no need to install any 3rd party software which makes the applications more portable 3) API bindings

jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
I did not know about this project at the time I started with pdfcrowd. But anyway, I just took my existing pdf library and integrated it with WebKit which was not that hard as one could think.
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
That's a known problem on my todo list. The colors are dulled only in Acrobat but other PDF readers render the colors correctly. Please, could you post the link to that page if possible? Thanks.
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
I don't know the exact status of how WebKit handles these properties. I know that at least "page-break-after: always" works since that is what I use when the user clicks the 'Insert Page Break' button in the editor (http://pdfcrowd.com/editor/).
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
Yes, I have seen it but have not tried it yet.
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
Thanks for the report. I will look into it as there should be no default HTML in the editor.
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
My current plan is to charge for conversion tokens but I'm not decided how much yet.
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
No special reason - I just don't know PHP. But it is on the todo list.
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
Sorry, don't know why. Your site does not validate but it could be problem on my side as well.
jgresula··on Ask HN: please review my app - html to pdf API
That's a non-trivial task. There are no such objects like tables, styles, lists or paragraphs in PDF so you would need to reconstruct this kind of information. Also, text and vector graphics is positioned absolutely. Tagged PDFs contains some meta-information about the document structure which could help but still it is a lot of work.

The fundamental problem is that PDF stores the document presentation while html defines the document and the presentation is created by the browser. And obviously, to restore a document definition from its presentation is hard as lot of information is missing.

jgresula··on Ask HN: Are you a single founder ?
1) Since November 2009, launched this March.

2) Never applied.

3) No, self-funded.

4) http://pdfcrowd.com - html to pdf online API

jgresula··on PDFmyURL.com - Convert and save pdf from any webpage for free
Have a look at http://pdfcrowd.com - it is a service providing an html to pdf online API and it has bindings for python. It is in private beta now, so if you are interested please just contact me and I will send you an invitation key.