Development
Automating Test Retries
We walk through our experience of dealing with flaky tests by automatically retrying them.
Debugging Image Loading and Cropping Performance on iOS
We talk about using the Image I/O and Core Graphics APIs to improve the image loading and cropping performance in the PSPDFKit iOS SDK.
How We Debugged a Customer Problem with a Signed PDF
This blog post details how the PDF expertise of the PSPDFKit team helped unblock a customer with a tricky PDF problem.
Load Testing PSPDFKit Server
How we figured out what it takes to run PSPDFKit Server.
Automating Mac Catalyst Distribution with fastlane
We recently automated PDF Viewer for Mac distribution via fastlane. Here’s how you can do the same for your Mac Catalyst app.
Optimizing PDFs for Printers
How to make sure your users get a good experience when your PDF is printed.
Why Should You Care about Manual Testing?
How to approach manual testing pragmatically for quality products you can be proud of.
How a B-Tree Helped Reduce Memory Usage in Our Framework
This blog post describes the approach we took to save around 15 percent of memory in our framework by first identifying bottlenecks, and then changing one of our dictionary implementations to use a specialized data structure known as a B-tree.
A Brief Tour of Multipart Requests
...Or, how your files travel over the internet.
Why PDF Uses Floats and Word Uses EMUs
This post explores and gives examples of the units of length in Word documents.
What Contributes to Slow PDF Rendering?
We briefly cover how PDF rendering works and some reasons why rendering a PDF can be slow.
SwiftUI In Production
We recently shipped a major new feature in SwiftUI while still supporting iOS 12 in our SDK. Here's what we learned.
Server Development on Apple Silicon
A short post about the experience of using an M1 MacBook for working on our Server product.
Our Journey to ARM
A recollection of the events that led to PSPDFKit supporting ARM for our server-based products.
Tackling PDF Performance Issues
Digging into the internals of PSPDFKit to improve PDF performance.
How to Customize Our Flutter PDF SDK
How to fork and modify the PSPDFKit Flutter PDF SDK for your own application.
The Perils of Large Files in Elixir
A post about dealing with large files in Elixir applications.
Streams of Cocoa: Why It's Still Worth Knowing NSStream
In this post, we'll look at a piece of API that many people rarely touch, if ever: Stream. It’s neither new nor shiny, but it's a powerful tool when you know how to use it.
String Literals, Character Encodings, and Multiplatform C++
How string literals are encoded by Clang and MSVC.
Frontend Performance Enhancements at PSPDFKit
A short article about the principles of performance improvements at PSPDFKit.
Advances in XCFrameworks
With Xcode 12, Apple improved the XCFramework format, which unlocks great new capabilities.
Deflaking CI Tests with xcresults
We’re sharing some techniques for tracking down and fixing flaky Xcode tests on CI.
Continuous Integration: From Jenkins to Buildkite
Learn why we moved from Jenkins to Buildkite, what the current most promising services are, and how we evaluated them.
Stop Wasting Bandwidth with PDFs — Transfer Changes with Instant JSON
PDFs can be large, and sending only the changes can dramatically reduce the amount of bandwidth used.
Automating macOS Provisioning with Chef
Learn how to use Chef to automatically provision macOS machines for CI: infrastructure as code
A Primer on JSON Web Tokens
What JWTs are, how they work, and how we use them at PSPDFKit.
Time Travel Debugging for C/C++
A quick look at reverse debugging/time travel debugging for C/C++.
How to Unlock PDF Functionality with OCR in iOS
This blog post covers how to integrate OCR functionality in iOS, perform OCR, and leverage functionality such as extraction, selection, highlight, and search.
Keeping Up with JavaScript Pointer Events
Events on the web have changed a great deal since the days of the cursor and the mouse. We examine some differences that you should be aware of.
How Updating to Kotlin 1.4 Broke Our Linter Rules
How the update to Android Gradle plugin 4.1 and Kotlin 1.4 can break custom linter rules, and how to fix it.
Managing macOS Hardware: Virtualization or Bare Metal?
We explore the different ways to run macOS in the cloud, comparing virtualization via VMware, Anka, and Orka with running a fleet of bare metal machines on Amazon or MacStadium.
Continuous Integration for Small iOS/macOS Teams
In this new series, we're sharing our approach to macOS continuous integration for smaller teams that can't dedicate an entire team to CI management or aren't willing to invest five-figure sums per year for their setup.
Executable API Documentation with the LLVM Integration Tester and FileCheck
This post covers what executable documentation is and how you can use the LLVM Integration Tester to create it.
Updating Complex Forked Projects
This blog post explains all the steps we take to stay up to date with PDFium at all times.
Faster Compilation with Ccache 4.0
Ccache is a build cache to achieve faster compilation. With the 4.0 release, it now supports Modules, which makes it possible to accelerate projects that mix Objective-C and Swift.
Migrating to the New Emscripten LLVM Backend
We share the experience of migrating from the old Fastcomp backend to the new LLVM backend in Emscripten.
How We're Improving Accessibility on PSPDFKit for Web
Better keyboard navigation and assistive technology support on the latest versions of our Web SDK.
The Generalized CRUD API of PSPDFKit for Web
An introduction to why and how we designed the brand-new unified CRUD API in PSPDFKit for Web.
An Introduction to LLDB Reproducers
An introduction to an experimental feature in LLDB, Reproducers, that helps reproduce bugs in the debugger itself.
The State of Debugging in WebAssembly
We share our tips and tricks for debugging issues in WebAssembly and look to the future to see what's coming.
Monitoring PSPDFKit Server with Metrics
Using data to draw insightful conclusions.
Binary Frameworks as Swift Packages
What we learned from experimenting with binary frameworks as Swift packages in Xcode 12.
Evaluating the Render Fidelity of PDF.js
We explore various issues with the render fidelity of PDF.js.
Visual Studio Code, C++, and a Docker Container
Our journey of using Visual Studio Code to develop C++ in a remote container.
Using Metal to Apply Image Filters
An overview of how to use Metal to apply filters to images to perform a simple color inversion on the input image.
C++20 in 2020: Modules
An introduction to the C++20 modules feature: what they are, their potential advantages and disadvantages, and how they are used.
Optical Character Recognition in Scanned PDFs
An overview of how OCR can enhance scanned documents to speed up common operations. We explain what OCR is, why it's useful, and how it works.
Why Is the PDF Format So Well Supported on Apple Platforms?
Apple has a rich history of supporting the PDF file format, but when and how did its relationship with the PDF format begin?
A Better Way to Git Log to Understand Changes in a Big Codebase
How git log information may not be enough when developers need to understand changes in a codebase that has evolved over several years.
The Case for Lists in UICollectionView
Exploring the power and flexibility offered by creating lists using UICollectionView.
The Hidden Trap in Selective Table View and Collection View Reloads
Learn how to properly update cells in a table view or collection view without crashing.
Transparent PNG Support
Images with transparency (PNG alpha support) offer new possibilities for annotating documents across all platforms.
How We Created a Real-Time Collaboration Tool Inside a PDF
This blog post takes a peek under the proverbial PDF hood to find out how we developed Instant Comments.
Direct Calls with Objective-C
Apple introduced the objc_direct attribute in Xcode 12. Learn what it does and how you can use it to your advantage.
How to Use WebAssembly Modules in a Web Worker
A short tutorial showing the use of WebAssembly in a web worker.
Supporting XCFrameworks
What we learned about XCFrameworks while migrating PSPDFKit to this new format.
NULL-Characters in Strings and Tales of Apple Radar
In iOS 11, Smart Punctuation caused data loss. Learn how we fixed the issue and how we are now cleaning up the OS-level workaround.
Text Selection Regression in Chrome 83
How we noticed a Chrome regression and shipped a workaround in a timely fashion.
Think First, Code Later
A case study on how we design features and APIs for PSPDFKit for Android.
IDEs and Text Editors for Writing C++ Code on a Large Scale
This blog post compares different IDEs and text editors that can be used to write C++ in a big codebase.
Automated Profiling Runs in Instruments
Learn how to automate measurement runs with Instruments.
How to Effectively Measure the Performance of Your Code
This blog post explains why software that performs well is important and how we measure code performance at PSPDFKit.
How to Reduce Flakiness in Automated UI Testing on Android
This blog post discusses tips and best practices on how to reduce flakiness in automated UI testing on Android.
Preventing Surprisingly Large Objective-C Type Encodings
Objective-C stores type encoding in the binary. These encodings can become surprisingly large.
Supporting Pointer Interactions
Apple introduced new pointer events in iOS 13.4 to better support trackpad and mouse devices.
Effective Header Management in C++
How we can reduce build times and clean up our header dependencies with effective header management.
Our Approach to Testing a Large-Scale C++ Codebase
This blog post outlines the frameworks and techniques PSPDFKit uses to test its large-scale C++ codebase.
Investigating the Performance Overhead of C++ Exceptions
C++ exceptions have their place, but using an alternative is recommended for general program flow control.
Compiler-Based Lock Checking in C++
A short introduction to compiler-based lock checking in C++ with Clang using Thread Safety Analysis
The State of Progressive Web Apps in 2020
Examining new developments in the PWA landscape that affect mobile and desktop browsers.
The C++ Lifetime Profile: How It Plans to Make C++ Code Safer
This blog post explains what the C++ Lifetime Profile is and how it intends to make the language safer and help avoid memory management problems.
Moving a Git Repository into Its Submodule
How we improved our Git repository setup by moving our PDF Viewer for iOS repository into our PSPDFKit repository.
Filtering Tests in Android
A look at the android.support.test.filters library and what it provides you with.