# CairoMakie: Restrict PDF version
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939
**Category:** Visualization
**Tags:** makie, cairomakie
**Created:** [May 7, 2024, 10:27am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939 "2024-05-07T10:27:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@barucden](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/barucden)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2024, 10:27am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939/1 "2024-05-07T10:27:51Z")
I need to restrict the version of output PDFs to 1.5. I didn’t figure out how to do it. I could only find a [Discourse topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pdf-version-used-when-saving-a-figure-in-cairomakie/102282), where it was pointed out that cairo provides a [function to restrict the version](https://www.cairographics.org/manual/cairo-PDF-Surfaces.html#cairo-pdf-surface-restrict-to-version).
I am not familiar with Makie’s codebase and I needed the feature quickly, so I hacked it in the following way. I `]dev`ed Makie, and changed [`surface_from_output_type`](https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/blob/99f94fe6ae57a28e1535e77c274737026e46c405/CairoMakie/src/screen.jl#L60) to:
```julia
function surface_from_output_type(type::RenderType, io, w, h)
# ...
elseif type === PDF
surface = Cairo.CairoPDFSurface(io, w, h)
ccall((:cairo_pdf_surface_restrict_to_version, Cairo.libcairo), Nothing,
(Ptr{UInt8},Int32), surface.ptr, 1) # 1 means 1.5
return surface
# ...
end
```
It worked, but it is obviously not the ideal way. I have two questions:
1. Have I missed an easier way to set the PDF version?
2. If not, can we turn this into a PR (not sure if it belongs to Makie or Cairo.jl) to provide a more convenient way?
---
### Author:  [@Egwene\_al\_Vere](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Egwene_al_Vere)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 1:30am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939/2 "2024-05-09T01:30:38Z")
Looking to do the same thing, looks like it might be easier to make changes in the `save` [function](https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/blob/bbf8e7873b8825244bf94d62ce09a74daec3ea56/src/display.jl#L335), between the `screen = getscreen` and `backend_show` call
```julia
using CairoMakie
using CairoMakie.Makie: FigureLike, current_backend, update_state_before_display!, getscreen, get_scene, filetype, isvisible, backend_show
using CairoMakie.Makie.FileIO
CairoMakie.activate!()
function save_pdf(
filename::String, fig::FigureLike; args...
)
save_pdf(FileIO.query(filename), fig; args...)
end
function save_pdf(
file::FileIO.Formatted, fig::FigureLike;
size=Base.size(get_scene(fig)),
resolution=nothing,
backend=current_backend(),
update=true,
pdf_vers=1,
screen_config...
)
scene = get_scene(fig)
if resolution !== nothing
@warn "The keyword argument `resolution` for `save()` has been deprecated. Use `size` instead, which better reflects that this is a unitless size and not a pixel resolution."
size = resolution
end
if size != Base.size(scene)
resize!(scene, size)
end
filename = FileIO.filename(file)
# Delete previous file if it exists and query only the file string for type.
# We overwrite existing files anyway, so this doesn't change the behavior.
# But otherwise we could get a filetype :UNKNOWN from a corrupt existing file
# (from an error during save, e.g.), therefore we don't want to rely on the
# type readout from an existing file.
isfile(filename) && rm(filename)
# query the filetype only from the file extension
F = filetype(file)
mime = MIME("application/pdf")
try
return open(filename, "w") do io
# If the scene already got displayed, we get the current screen its displayed on
# Else, we create a new scene and update the state of the fig
update && update_state_before_display!(fig)
visible = isvisible(getscreen(scene)) # if already has a screen, don't hide it!
config = Dict{Symbol,Any}(screen_config)
get!(config, :visible, visible)
screen = getscreen(backend, scene, config, io, mime)
ccall((:cairo_pdf_surface_restrict_to_version, CairoMakie.Cairo.libcairo), Nothing,
(Ptr{UInt8}, Int32), screen.surface.ptr, pdf_vers)
backend_show(screen, io, mime, scene)
end
catch e
# So, if open(io-> error(...), "w"), the file will get created, but not removed...
isfile(filename) && rm(filename; force=true)
rethrow(e)
end
end
# ---
begin
fig = Figure()
ax = Axis(fig[1, 1])
x = 0:0.05:pi
lines!(x, sin.(x))
fig
end
save_pdf("test2.pdf", fig)
```
gives
```bash
pdfinfo test2.pdf 09:04:35 PM
Producer: cairo 1.18.0 (https://cairographics.org)
CreationDate: Wed May 8 21:09:23 2024 EDT
Custom Metadata: no
Metadata Stream: no
Tagged: no
UserProperties: no
Suspects: no
Form: none
JavaScript: no
Pages: 1
Encrypted: no
Page size: 450 x 338 pts
Page rot: 0
File size: 4071 bytes
Optimized: no
PDF version: 1.5
```
---
### Author:  [@barucden](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/barucden)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2024, 8:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939/3 "2024-05-09T08:17:26Z")
I took some time to look around the codebase and proposed a PR: [CairoMakie: Allow restricting PDF version by barucden · Pull Request #3845 · MakieOrg/Makie.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/pull/3845)
I am sure the maintainers will have some suggestions but it already allows to do this:
```julia
fig = Figure()
ax = Axis(fig[1, 1])
x = range(0, 10, length=100)
y = sin.(x)
save("version_1-4.pdf", fig, pdf_version="1.4")
save("version_1-7.pdf", fig, pdf_version="1.7")
shell> file version_1-4.pdf
version_1-4.pdf: PDF document, version 1.4, 1 page(s)
shell> file version_1-7.pdf
version_1-7.pdf: PDF document, version 1.7
```
---
### Author:  [@barucden](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/barucden)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2024, 11:58am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939/4 "2024-05-27T11:58:00Z")
Good news for anyone interested: the feature has been merged ([Restrict pdf version by SimonDanisch · Pull Request #3885 · MakieOrg/Makie.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/pull/3885)). It should be a part of the next release, v0.21.3.
---
### Author:  [@affans](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/affans)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2024, 1:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939/5 "2024-05-27T13:51:05Z")
@barucden just out of curiosity, did you need to restrict to 1.5 for latex purposes? If so,
```julia
\pdfminorversion=7 % needs to be before the documentclass (i.e. pdf can not be started)
```
in the preamble (or pre-preamble?) should allow you to use later pdf versions.
For example
```julia
\pdfminorversion=7
\documentclass[aspectratio=1610]{beamer}
```
---
### Author:  [@barucden](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/barucden)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2024, 2:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cairomakie-restrict-pdf-version/113939/6 "2024-05-27T14:07:50Z")
It was indeed for a figure in a paper written in latex.
I did not know about `\pdfminorversion`. Anyway, I am not sure if the paper is even allowed to be of a version higher than 1.4. I might have tried it. Thanks for letting me know.