Create a table of contents from a pdf file

ryan picture ryan · Mar 31, 2010 · Viewed 12.7k times · Source

I'm using quartz to display pdf content, and I need to create a table of contents to navigate through the pdf. From reading Apple's documentation I think I am supposed to use CGPDFDocumentGetCatalog, but I can't find any examples on how to use this anywhere. Any ideas?

Update: Still haven't found a solution for this. I tired Alex' solution but the output I get looks like this:

2011-07-27 09:16:19.359 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Pages
2011-07-27 09:16:19.361 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Count
2011-07-27 09:16:19.362 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] pdf integer value: 238
2011-07-27 09:16:19.363 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Kids
2011-07-27 09:16:19.366 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Type
2011-07-27 09:16:19.368 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Outlines
2011-07-27 09:16:19.370 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Count
2011-07-27 09:16:19.371 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] pdf integer value: 7
2011-07-27 09:16:19.372 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: First
2011-07-27 09:16:19.374 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Parent
2011-07-27 09:16:19.375 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] key: Count
2011-07-27 09:16:19.376 LDS Scriptures App-iPad[624:707] pdf integer value: 7

No idea yet how to turn that into a usable table of contents. Ideally I would like to get to an array of NSDictionary objects with a title and matching page number.

Answer

Alex Reynolds picture Alex Reynolds · Apr 1, 2010

Something like this might help you get started:

NSURL *documentURL = ...; // URL to file or http resource etc.
CGPDFDocumentRef pdfDocument = CGPDFDocumentCreateWithURL((CFURLRef)documentURL);
CGPDFDictionaryRef pdfDocDictionary = CGPDFDocumentGetCatalog(pdfDocument);
// loop through dictionary...
CGPDFDictionaryApplyFunction(pdfDocDictionary, ListDictionaryObjects, NULL);
CGPDFDocumentRelease(pdfDocument);

...

void ListDictionaryObjects (const char *key, CGPDFObjectRef object, void *info) {
    NSLog("key: %s", key);
    CGPDFObjectType type = CGPDFObjectGetType(object);
    switch (type) { 
        case kCGPDFObjectTypeDictionary: {
            CGPDFDictionaryRef objectDictionary;
            if (CGPDFObjectGetValue(object, kCGPDFObjectTypeDictionary, &objectDictionary)) {
                CGPDFDictionaryApplyFunction(objectDictionary, ListDictionaryObjects, NULL);
            }
        }
        case kCGPDFObjectTypeInteger: {
            CGPDFInteger objectInteger;
            if (CGPDFObjectGetValue(object, kCGPDFObjectTypeInteger, &objectInteger)) {
                NSLog("pdf integer value: %ld", (long int)objectInteger); 
            }
        }
        // test other object type cases here
        // cf. http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/GraphicsImaging/Reference/CGPDFObject/Reference/reference.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30001117-CH3g-SW1
    }    
}