Source-level native PDF · Delphi & C++Builder
HotPDF is a source-level PDF component library for Delphi and C++Builder: pure native, with no external PDF runtime or DLL, baking advanced typography shaping, compliant signing, standards preflight and multi-gigabyte handling entirely into your own single executable process
Every selling point below is a delivered capability, not a roadmap promise. Each one carries verifiable evidence — down to source units, function names and passing tests
Integrates directly as Pascal source into your project and generates, parses and saves PDF entirely inside your process, with full debugging and deployment control. The C backends for imaging and compression (zlib-ng, libjpeg-turbo, OpenJPEG, jbig2dec) are statically linked object files — there is no extra PDF engine DLL at runtime
Entry classTHotPDF · 47 Pascal source units
Ships a full GSUB substitution engine (LookupTypes 1–8) and a full GPOS positioning engine (all 9 LookupTypes): ligatures, small caps, contextual substitution, pair/contextual kerning, mark-to-base, mark-to-mark, cursive attachment. Most competing Delphi PDF components have nothing here
20+ scripts shaped on the producer side: Arabic (incl. Supplement / Extended-A/B), Syriac, Mongolian, N'Ko, Tibetan, Devanagari and the Indic family, Javanese, Thai/Lao, Hebrew, Khmer, Myanmar and more; paired with a UAX #9 bidi pipeline and full /ToUnicode reverse mapping so copy/paste/search recovers the original codepoints
Sign with PFX/PKCS#12 in one call — THotPDF.SignPDFWithPFX — with no OpenSSL and no platform crypto provider. The entire ASN.1, RSA, AES, PKCS#12 unwrap and CMS SignedData (RFC 5652) chain is implemented inside HotPDF, with reproducible, auditable results
HPDFASN1 / HPDFRSA / HPDFCrypt / HPDFPFX / HPDFCMS / HPDFAES
Supports PAdES B-B / B-T / B-LT / B-LTA — the hard requirement for EU eIDAS compliance: RFC 3161 timestamps, DSS/VRI dictionaries, document-timestamp signatures, Seed Value constraints, XAdES-in-PDF. Competitors typically stop at basic CMS
For long-term archiving and e-signature scenarios that must meet evidentiary rulesLocks PDF/A-1/-2/-3, PDF/X-1a/-3/-4 and PDF/UA-1 as independent compliance profiles simultaneously; non-conformant calls raise diagnostic exceptions instead of silently producing non-compliant PDFs. CreatePreflightReport emits text/JSON/HTML/CSV reports, validated against veraPDF
RequirePDFVersion + StrictVersionLock
Processes file-to-file without building the in-memory object graph: DAOpenFileReadOnly, DACopyFile, EncryptFile, DecryptFile handle classic xref tables, XRef streams, hybrid references and incrementally updated files, with throughput measured in seconds
Subsets TrueType, OpenType-CFF and CID-keyed CFF fonts (EnableFontSubsetting) while preserving glyph IDs for Type0/Identity-H text — a CJK document shrinks from ~14 MB CID-keyed CFF to 500 KB–2 MB; a typical Latin TTF from 350 KB to 10–15 KB
FastReport, QuickReport, ReportBuilder and DevExpress ExpressPrinting (covering cxGrid/cxRichEdit/cxScheduler/cxPivotGrid), plus a DBGrid adapter — wire your existing reports onto HotPDF's PDF backend in one step, no report rewrite needed
Adapter units live underLib/addons/<engine>
PDFSpecComplianceMatrix.md records that HotPDF's supported authoring surface has “no unimplemented PDF spec code gap”
Contracts, invoices, archives — needing PAdES long-term validation, incremental updates (BeginIncrementalUpdate) to preserve already-signed byte ranges, and PDF/A archival compliance
Arabic, Indic, CJK and other scripts that must shape and position correctly and copy/paste back to the original codepoints — HotPDF solves “renders right and copies right” in one pass
Batch encryption, decryption, page counting, extraction — the Direct File API lets multi-gigabyte files be processed without the whole document resident in memory
Already using FastReport / QuickReport / ReportBuilder / DevExpress reports — one adapter swaps in the HotPDF backend and keeps your report designs intact
Software that must deploy as a single executable, carry no third-party PDF DLL, and debug the whole pipeline inside its own process
Tagged PDF structure trees, role maps, marked content, and /Alt//ActualText accessibility attributes for PDF/UA-1 (ISO 14289-1)
No OpenSSL, no platform crypto provider — PFX/PKCS#12 signing is done entirely inside the HotPDF process:
var Pdf: THotPDF;
Pdf := THotPDF.Create(nil);
try
Pdf.FileName := 'contract.pdf';
Pdf.SignPDFWithPFX('contract.pdf', 'signed.pdf',
'cert.pfx', 'pfx-password');
finally
Pdf.Free;
end;Need long-term validation (PAdES B-LTA)? Append DSS/VRI dictionaries and an RFC 3161 timestamp; to apply an incremental update to any signed document without breaking the original signed byte range, use BeginIncrementalUpdate / SaveIncrementalUpdate
Start with the full capability list and the component overview,
drill into classes (THotPDF, THPDFPage, THPDFPara) in the documentation Contents,
or browse the changelog for the latest delivered capabilities