About text scaling feature

[hmertakyatan]

Hi, Does Pymupdf have a text scaling feature, or can we only apply it in pixels?
I am currently developing an application that renders SVG and includes data merging and imposition features.
I'm using Harfbuzz SVG for text rendering and can scale it in the x and y directions, but when I output it using PyMuPDF, it only appears as a font size argument. According to my research, it exists in the PDF syntax (Tm), but I couldn't find it in the documentation.

[JorjMcKie]

We do not support PDF syntax in this respect. You have a couple of alternatives however:

• You can use a Matrix to scale x and y directions independently - thus simulating italics AOT. This is the morph parameter in page.insert_text().
• You can use page.insert_htmlbox(). This lets you specify the text as HTML-enriched strings and also specify CSS for additional styling instructions.

[JorjMcKie]

Well, I wasn't quite precise in my above comment: The mentioned morph parameter in "insert_text()" is a tuple (point, matrix). The point is regarded as a fixpoint under the Matrix operation.
This means the point is taken to be the center of rotation if a rotation matrix is chosen and so on for other matrix types.
If scaling in x-direction is chosen by say factor 1.5, the matrix Matrix(1.5, 1) would be used. If the text insertion point is chosen as the fixpoint, the resulting text will be 1.5 pixels longer.

Of course, that matrix will become part of the PDF.

[hmertakyatan]

Thank you very much, I was expecting the parameter name to be “matrix.” I hadn't looked into it in detail sorry.

[JorjMcKie]

Thank you very much, I was expecting the parameter name to be “matrix.” I hadn't looked into it in detail sorry.

No problem at all - I'm glad you asked. Here are a few examples showing the effect. Admittedly no very easy to find ... 😒