PDF Language Module

Feb 15, 2009 12:00:00 AM | Learning PDF PDF Language Module

Appligent has developed a BBEdit Language Module for PDF to aid developers in reading raw PDF files by highlighting specific elements with syntax coloring.

by Mark Gavin

We have developed a BBEdit Language Module for PDF.  This language module is written to aid developers and support personnel in reading raw PDF files by highlighting specific elements of the file with syntax coloring.

BBEdit Language Module for PDF

The meaning of the colors are as follows:

blue – PDF keywords

red – arrays

green – dictionaries

purple – strings

light gray – stream data

Download: PDFHighlight is a Universal Binary plug-in built for BBEdit 9 and 10.

Installation: To install the plug-in, make sure BBEdit isn’t running, and place the plug-in in the following folder:

(your home directory)/Library/Application Support/BBEdit/Language Modules

If the “Language Modules” directory doesn’t exist on your machine, you should create it.  PDFHilight will automatically add itself to the “Languages” pane of the BBEdit Preferences.

Usage: Once the plug-in is installed, PDF files opened in BBEdit will be displayed with syntax coloring to help locate certain elements in the structure.

Note: BBEdit defaults to displaying a text files with “Translate Line Breaks” enabled.  If you want to count bytes in a PDF file; you should disable “Translate Line Breaks” in the “Text Files” preferences pane.

Disclaimer: PDFHilight is provided unsupported “as-is”.  Though, we welcome your comments and suggestions at support at appligent dot com.

Written By: Mark Gavin