HotPDF Component for Delphi PDF creation and editing

HotPDF at a glance

Product	HotPDF Component — native VCL PDF authoring library for Delphi and C++Builder
Best for	Creating, editing, signing, and validating PDF documents directly from application code
IDE support	RAD Studio XE5 through 13.1 Florence (Delphi and C++Builder; Win32, Win64, Win64x)
Standards	PDF 1.3-1.7 with selected PDF 2.0 encryption; PDF/A-1/2/3, PDF/UA-1, PDF/X-1a/3/4; PAdES B-B through B-LTA signing
Deployment	Compiles into your executable; no external PDF runtime for core authoring
Source code	Full Object Pascal source included with every license
Licensing	Royalty-free, one-time $500-$6000 by tier; renewal at 40% of list price
Current version	2.256.0 (2026-07-01)
Evaluation	Free demo package download

Native PDF creation and editing for Delphi and C++Builder

HotPDF is a source-level Delphi and C++Builder PDF component for applications that need to create, edit, secure, sign, validate, and assemble PDF documents directly from VCL code. It does not require an external PDF runtime for its core authoring workflow and is designed for Windows desktop software built with RAD Studio.

Use HotPDF when your application needs programmatic page drawing, Unicode text output, font embedding and subsetting, forms, annotations, image import, PDF merge/edit operations, encryption, digital signatures, standards-aware output, and lightweight preflight automation from one native API surface.

HotPDF supports RAD Studio XE5 through RAD Studio 13.1 Florence for Delphi and C++Builder, including Win32, Win64, and Win64x workflows.

Main capabilities

• Create new PDFs, add pages, draw text and vector graphics, register reusable Form XObjects, place images, and save to files or caller-owned streams.
• Load existing PDFs, inspect page boxes, search bookmark destinations, copy pages, insert pages, extract pages, reorder pages, delete pages, merge documents, stamp or watermark content, and update document information.
• Add hyperlinks, named destinations, outlines, file attachments, comments, popups, highlight annotations, free-text annotations, redaction annotations, watermark annotations, page thumbnails, layers, page transitions, and viewer preferences.
• Create AcroForm fields, generated appearance streams, signature fields, multi-line and comb text fields, rich-text field values, XFA packet containers, form-field trigger wrappers, and multiple Unicode fonts in the AcroForm resource dictionary where the selected standard profile allows them.
• Inspect, update, rename, remove, or flatten fields in loaded AcroForm documents before saving an edited copy.
• Embed and subset TrueType, Type 1 PFB, OpenType-CFF, and CID-keyed CFF fonts for compact multilingual output, including CJK-heavy documents.
• Generate Unicode text, right-to-left text, vertical text, supplementary-plane characters such as emoji, Arabic / Persian / Urdu shaping, Latin standard ligatures, Devanagari reordering, and OpenType GSUB-based glyph output with matching /CIDToGIDMap, /W, and /ToUnicode integration.
• Import JPEG, bitmap, TIFF, JPEG2000, JBIG2, WMF, and EMF content, with zlib-ng Flate compression and libjpeg-turbo backed JPEG handling.
• Protect documents with passwords, AES-128, AES-256, PDF 2.0 AES-256 R6, public-key recipient encryption, and permission flags.
• Sign PDFs with in-process PFX / PKCS#12 support and PAdES B-B, B-T, B-LT, and B-LTA workflows including RFC 3161 timestamps and DSS / VRI dictionaries.
• Create text, JSON, and HTML preflight reports, apply preflight profiles and presets, aggregate batch results, embed report evidence in PDFs, compare reports, and run focused PDF/VT validation.
• Use optional PDF backends for FastReport, QuickReport, ReportBuilder, and DevExpress ExpressPrinting when existing report layouts should emit through HotPDF.
• Process very large PDFs at high speed with the Direct File API, which opens, copies, and rewrites documents directly on disk without loading the whole file into the object model. On a 2 GB benchmark document with 1.67 million objects, AES-256 encryption takes about 14 seconds, decryption about 16 seconds, and a full rewrite about 6 seconds; reading the page count of a 1.25 GB document takes milliseconds. Classic cross-reference tables, cross-reference streams, hybrid-reference files, and incrementally updated documents all stay on the direct path.
• Encrypt and decrypt with AES-256 at hardware speed: with CPU AES-NI, AES-256-CBC reaches about 442 MB/s for encryption and 832 MB/s for decryption (about 3× and 5.7× faster than the portable software path), file-to-file EncryptFile / DecryptFile calls protect or unprotect huge documents without building the object graph, and opening a large password-protected PDF uses far less memory.

Download the HotPDF Component DEMO package

2026-07-01 Version 2.256.0: HotPDF changelog. Recent releases complete XFDF annotation coverage across all 18 ISO 19444-1 annotation elements, add a self-contained base64 codec for the XFDF layer, and wire embedded-file streams into XFDF import and export.

Licensing and pricing

Pay with credit/debit cards, PayPal, AliPay, or wire transfer through 2Checkout. Every new HotPDF license includes the full Object Pascal source code, one year of updates, and one year of email support.

License	Developers	Price (one-time)	Order
Single	1 developer	$500	Buy HotPDF Single
Small Business	Up to 10 developers	$1000	Buy HotPDF Small Business
Medium Business	Up to 30 developers	$1500	Buy HotPDF Medium Business
Enterprise	All developers in one company and its subsidiaries within a single country	$3000	Buy HotPDF Enterprise
Corporate	All developers in one company and its subsidiaries worldwide	$6000	Buy HotPDF Corporate

License choice: Choose the tier that covers your developer headcount: Single (1 developer), Small Business (up to 10), or Medium Business (up to 30). Enterprise covers every developer in one company and its subsidiaries within a single country; Corporate extends that same coverage worldwide.

Enterprise and Corporate source extras: HotPDF Enterprise and Corporate both include complete source code for dedicated tool-grade examples, currently PDF Preflight Pro and XFA & AcroForms Flattener Pro; source code for the internal testing projects is available on request.

Existing customer renewal: Renew within 90 days of update-service expiration at 40% of the current list price; after 90 days, contact us for a discounted reorder link. Open the HotPDF purchase and renewal page.

Standards, signing, and validation workflows

HotPDF supports standards-aware PDF generation workflows for PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2, PDF/A-3, PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4, and PDF/UA-1. It also includes preflight and focused PDF/VT validation helpers for review and automation workflows. The component exposes profile-specific switches and guards so calls that would break the selected profile can fail early instead of silently writing a non-conformant PDF.

Workflow	HotPDF support	Author responsibility
PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2, PDF/A-3	PDFACompliance, XMP pdfaid metadata, OutputIntent support, font-embedding enforcement, JavaScript/encryption/annotation/profile guards, and PDF/A-2A / PDF/A-3A smoke outputs validated with veraPDF.	Choose the target level, provide real ICC OutputIntent data, set title/language, embed appropriate fonts, and avoid content outside the selected archival profile.
PDF/UA-1	PDFUACompliance, Tagged PDF root, pdfuaid metadata, /Lang, DisplayDocTitle, structure elements, marked content, role mapping, ParentTree wiring, alternate text and ActualText helpers.	Build meaningful document structure, reading order, heading hierarchy, list/table semantics, and alternative descriptions for real content.
PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4	PDFXCompliance, OutputIntent support, prepress profile guards, and restrictions for interactive or non-print-safe features.	Provide print-appropriate color management, page boxes, and production settings for the chosen prepress workflow.
PDF/VT validation	ValidatePDFVT checks XMP PDF/VT identification, metadata namespace, modification-date consistency, PDF/X base markers, OutputIntent, catalog DPartRoot structure, loadable pages, and page-level DPart coverage.	Use it to audit incoming or produced files; authoring the full variable-data production intent remains the caller's responsibility.

PDF/A Level A enables the Tagged PDF foundation required by the archival profile. It does not automatically advertise PDF/UA-1; HotPDF emits the PDF/UA identity only when PDFUACompliance is explicitly enabled.

Preflight APIs can produce text, JSON, and HTML reports, filter output through saved profiles or built-in presets, aggregate batch results, embed report evidence in a review copy, compare reports, and convert reports into a veraPDF-style structure for downstream tooling.

Additional feature coverage

• OpenType GSUB LookupType 1-8 support, script/language feature selection, Latin standard ligatures, Arabic / Persian / Urdu shaping, Devanagari reordering, and PUA synthetic codepoint emission for font-specific glyphs.
• XFA packet container support, AcroForm /AA trigger wrappers, multiple Unicode fonts in AcroForm /DR, and generated CID-font appearance streams.
• Incremental update saving, multi-signature workflows, signature placeholders, in-process CMS SignedData generation, and long-term validation dictionaries.
• Loaded-document helpers for page-box inspection, bookmark destination lookup, AcroForm field inspection, field value updates, field renaming, field removal, and form flattening.
• Preflight profile load/save/validate/merge/diff helpers, batch aggregation, embedded report validation, XMP report embedding, focused PDF/VT validation, and conservative repair from preflight reports.
• PDF 1.3 through PDF 1.7 feature gates, selected PDF 2.0 encryption support, object streams, XRef streams, OutputIntents, transparency groups, soft masks, patterns, shadings, and prepress ExtGState controls.

HotPDF online documentation

Quick Delphi example

program HelloHotPDF;

uses
  System.SysUtils,
  HPDFDoc;

var
  PDF: THotPDF;
begin
  PDF := THotPDF.Create(nil);
  try
    PDF.AutoLaunch := False;
    PDF.FileName := 'HelloHotPDF.pdf';
    PDF.Compression := cmFlateDecode;
    PDF.EnableFontSubsetting := True;
    PDF.BeginDoc;
    PDF.CurrentPage.SetFont('Arial', [], 18);
    PDF.CurrentPage.TextOut(50, 50, 0, 'Hello HotPDF');
    PDF.EndDoc;
  finally
    PDF.Free;
  end;
end.

Download the HotPDF Component DEMO package
Supports RAD Studio XE5 through RAD Studio 13.1 Florence for Delphi and C++Builder (Win32, Win64, and Win64x workflows)

When to choose HotPDF

• Choose HotPDF when your application creates or edits PDF documents and you would rather ship nothing alongside it: HotPDF carries its own rendering engine, image codecs, and font engine, so it compiles straight into your executable with no PDF runtime to redistribute or audit.
• Choose PDFium Delphi Component when the work is reading and reviewing rather than authoring: viewer architecture, accessible read-aloud, table extraction, semantic reflow to HTML, and standards validation. It renders through pdfium.dll, which you redistribute with your application.
• Choose PDF Library for Delphi when you need OCR, barcode reading, PKCS#11 hardware-token signing, EU trust-list validation, or DOCX / HTML export, or when non-Delphi code has to call in through DLL, ActiveX, or Dylib.

Comparing the whole family? See the PDF developer libraries overview for a side-by-side of PDFium Delphi Component, losLab PDF Library, and HotPDF Component.

Frequently asked questions

Which Delphi and C++Builder versions does HotPDF support?

HotPDF supports RAD Studio XE5 through RAD Studio 13.1 Florence for both Delphi and C++Builder, covering Win32, Win64, and Win64x application targets.

Does HotPDF require Adobe Acrobat or an external PDF runtime?

No. HotPDF compiles into your application and creates, edits, signs, and validates PDF documents in process; the core authoring workflow does not deploy or call an external PDF runtime.

Is the full source code included?

Yes. Every license includes the complete Object Pascal source code. The Enterprise license adds source code for the tool-grade examples PDF Preflight Pro and XFA & AcroForms Flattener Pro; source code for the internal testing projects is available on request.

Is HotPDF royalty-free?

Yes. Licensed applications ship royalty-free with no per-document, per-user, or per-server fees, in unlimited applications.

Can HotPDF produce PDF/A, PDF/UA, and PDF/X compliant documents?

Yes. HotPDF supports standards-aware output for PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2, PDF/A-3, PDF/UA-1, PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, and PDF/X-4, with profile guards that fail early instead of silently writing a non-conformant file, plus text, JSON, and HTML preflight reports.

Can HotPDF edit, merge, and stamp existing PDF files?

Yes. HotPDF loads existing documents for page copy, insert, extract, reorder, delete, merge, watermark and stamp operations, document information updates, and AcroForm field inspection, updates, and flattening.

How does HotPDF handle very large PDF files?

The Direct File API opens, copies, and rewrites documents directly on disk without loading the whole file into memory. On a 2 GB benchmark with 1.67 million objects, AES-256 encryption takes about 14 seconds and a full rewrite about 6 seconds; with CPU AES-NI, AES-256 reaches about 442 MB/s encryption and 832 MB/s decryption. Review the documented Direct File API benchmark context and reproduce the workflow with your own files and hardware.

What does a HotPDF license include, and how does renewal work?

A new license ($500 Single, $1000 Small Business (up to 10 developers), $1500 Medium Business (up to 30 developers), $3000 Enterprise (one company, one country), $6000 Corporate (one company, worldwide)) includes full source code, one year of updates, and one year of email support. Existing customers renew update access at 40% of the full price.