PDF (Portable Document Format) is widely used for the exchange and faithful presentation of documents on a variety of output media. PDF defines a language of objects used for describing documents. The use of objects makes it easy to selectively implement only the parts of interest of the large specification without the need to be complete. The fundamentals of the PDF object system will be explained as well as an open source implementation in VisualWorks.
Christian Haider is using Smalltalk since 1992 and never had to leave it since. He experienced large projects as employee and consultant. Since 2002 he works in his one-man company on "smallCharts", a charting tool for newspapers. Interested in Graphics, User interfaces and systems design.