A rectangle, filled or outlined
Place a rectangle: a coloured band behind a heading, a frame around an area, or both, with the stroke you choose.
Summary
The simplest brick there is: four corners, and the choice of what goes inside them. Filled, it makes the grey band behind a section heading or the coloured cell of a table; outlined alone, it marks out a photograph, or an area meant to be cut. When you ask for both, the fill goes down first, so the outline stays visible over it.
Technically
Asked for with
"type": "rect"
A rect is a closed path whose four points you are spared: one re operator, then the same painting keys as a free path, the same clips, the same graphics state, the same placement. Its corners take expressions, which gives a band hugging the margins of a page whose width is unknown when the request is written. The fill takes a declared gradient, which makes it the usual carrier of a graded background. Drawing order follows item order: a rectangle placed after a text covers it.
Request schema
Required key: rect, an object of llx, lly, urx, ury, each a number or an expression. Optional: fill, a colour or {"shading": "name"}; stroke, an object with a required width plus color, dash, cap and join; clip, an object with a required segments and a rule (nonzero by default, even_odd); graphics_state, the name of a declared graphics state; pages, an array of one-based integers, default empty; transform, six numbers; rotate, degrees counter-clockwise about the centre of the rectangle; layer, the name of a declared layer. Cross refusals: transform together with rotate; a clip whose segments are empty. A rectangle takes fill, stroke, or both.
A whole request that creates a PDF
{
"items": [
{
"type": "rect",
"rect": {"llx": 72, "lly": 700, "urx": 523, "ury": 740},
"fill": [0.85, 0.89, 0.95],
"stroke": {"width": 1.0, "color": [0.11, 0.31, 0.55]}
}
]
}Shapes
A free path: lines, curves and filled shapes A straight line between two points A drawing declared once and placed as often as wanted
Where to go next
Every JSON key of a request, in one page The other twenty-two things you can draw