Which Attachments the Document's Card Claims
Tie files to the document's own metadata packet, so the card that describes the document names the data it was written from.
Summary
The document's identity card — its title, its author, its dates — can point at files too: the data the figures on its pages were taken from, the record the whole was produced from. Tied to the card, those files are found by whoever reads the card first.
Technically
Written at the top level of a request, under
"metadata_files"
metadata_files writes /AF on the document's own /Metadata stream, with the names of the declared attachments it claims. The packet is then written whatever else the document claims, and the files are tied to it.
Request Schema
-
metadata_files— array of strings, optional, empty by default. The names of the declared attachments the packet claims. Each must name one ofattachments.
Tying a file to anything but the document as a whole is PDF 2.0, so a request doing it declares "version": "2.0".
A Whole Request That Creates a PDF
{
"version": "2.0",
"attachments": [
{
"name": "statement_4711",
"file_name": "statement-4711.xml",
"description": "The data the statement was written from",
"media_type": "text/xml",
"relationship": "source",
"modified": "2026-08-03T09:15:00+02:00"
}
],
"metadata_files": ["statement_4711"],
"standard_fonts": [{ "name": "sans", "face": "helvetica" }],
"items": [
{
"type": "text",
"rect": { "llx": 72, "lly": 700, "urx": 523, "ury": 740 },
"content": ["A statement whose card names its source"],
"font": "sans",
"font_size": 12
}
]
}The document as a whole
The Numbers Reading Software Shows A Hundred Letters in a Single File What the Document Says about Itself What the Document Says about Itself, Said Once Text Nobody Can Copy The Notes a Program Leaves in the File for Itself The Notes a Program Leaves on One Page The Data a Program Hangs on a Run of Ink A File Still Readable Decades from Now The Print Standard the Document Claims The Variable Print Standard the Document Claims The Password That Opens It, and What May Be Done with It An Invoice a Person and a Machine Both Read The Address Relative Links Are Read Against The PDF Version the File Declares The Extensions to PDF the File Says It Uses What a Picture Says about Itself, and How It Is Read The Attachments the Document Carries Beside Its Pages Files the Document Names without Carrying The Attachments Shown as a Portfolio Which Attachments a Page Claims Which Attachments a Font Claims The Identity Card a Single Font Carries A Document Card Written Elsewhere The Areas of a Page a Reader Measures In The Identity Card a Single Page Carries The Accessibility Standard the Document Claims The Standards the Finished Document Is Measured Against
Where to Go Next
Every JSON key of a request, in one page The other forty-one settings of a request