It looks to me like you have to add a form to each page of the existing document; i.e., I believe background images in PDF are really what they call forms. I'm not exactly sure how to do that from the examples though. It might be worth posing this question to the author of the module. That seems like a good example to have in the module tutorials/examples if it can be done.

I would probably start by trying to get to each page in the existing document individually, versus adding something to the entire document stream which seems to be what your example is doing.

thank you for that "form"-hint. that was what i needed. i finally assembled a script which does perfectly what i wanted to achieve:

i know that the string concatenation ($string) is a bit clumsy, but i wanted to add the comments. you cannot have comments in quotes, can you?



use strict;

use PDF::API2;
use PDF::Reuse;

# specify files
my $ifile = "c:/kopie/anlage-h-beg.pdf";
my $ofile = "c:/kopie/new.pdf";

#find out number of pages
my $ipdf  = PDF::API2->open($ifile);
my $nop   = $ipdf->pages;
$ipdf->end();

#set outfile for PDF::Reuse
prFile($ofile);

#get font
my $intName = prFont("Helvetica");

# assemble watermark text
my $string = 

# save graphic state
"q\n" .

# Begin Text
"BT\n" .

# set font and "size" 
"/$intName 1 Tf\n" .

# set a text matrix
# 1. width of text
# 2. rotation angle (counterclockwise)
# 3. inclination (clockwise)
# 4. height of text
# 5. position x (0=left)
# 6. position y (0=bottom)    
"180 60 -60 180 100 185 Tm\n" .        

#set rgb-color (values between 0 and 1)
#"1 0 0 rg" .

#set grayscale (white=1 black=0)
"0.9 g\n" .

# show text
"(Kopie) Tj\n" .

# End Text
"ET\n" .
"Q\n";


#loop over pages
for (my $i=1;$i<=$nop;$i++)
{
    #add watermark    
    prAdd ($string);

    #add original content    
    my $internalName = prForm 
    ( 
        {
            file     => $ifile,
            page     => $i,
            effect   => 'print',
            tolerant  => 'no'
        } 
    );
    
    #add pagebreak
    prPage;
}

#save and close
prEnd();
[download]

To be a true watermark I would like the text to be on top but have an opacity value that would allow you to see the original document underneath. Does anyone know how to do this? Plus I would like to set the prMbox value based on the original pdf page

This method of creating a watermark works well except that there are certain things that seem to screw up...

Images currently inside document will be opaque and overtop of your watermark. Sometimes, the first page of a .pdf is totally blank, aside from the newly added watermark.

Would anyone have a suggestion as to why this is?

but this only creates empty pages with my watermark....

Can you show us the code you wrote using PDF::Reuse? It looks like the prAdd method will allow images to be added to existing pages.

You may also need to use something like ghostscript for that level of PDF manipulation. There is a GSAPI module at CPAN that provides Perl access to the ghostscript API, but I've never used it personally.

There's a PDF FAQ here. Your question of how to add watermarks is covered there but they suggest using this tool, which you have to buy.

i used (basically taken from the docs)



use PDF::Reuse;
use Image::Info qw(image_info dim);
use strict;

my $file = 'c:/kopie.jpg';
my $info = image_info($file);
my ($width, $height) = dim($info);    # Get the dimensions

prFile('c:/myFile.pdf');


my $intName = prJpeg("$file", $width, $height);

my $str = "q\n";
$str   .= "$width 500 500 $height 100 100 cm\n";
$str   .= "/$intName Do\n";
$str   .= "Q\n";


prDoc('c:/anlage-h-rbskt.pdf');
prAdd($str);

prEnd();
[download]



but as i said, this will add the image to a new page. am i missing something?

it will also be ok if i could just add text to the background.