How to Linearize a PDF Document in Ruby

Did you know that linearizing the contents of a PDF will optimize it for streaming download? Enabling streaming download will allow you to view your files while you are waiting; this can be particularly helpful if you download a large amount of files on the web. In this quick tutorial, we will demonstrate how you can use an API in Ruby to automatically linearize a PDF.

To start, we will add the Ruby client to our Gemfile:

gem 'cloudmersive-convert-api-client', '~> 2.1.6'

Next, we can call the function with the following code:

# load the gem
require 'cloudmersive-convert-api-client'
# setup authorization
CloudmersiveConvertApiClient.configure do |config|
  # Configure API key authorization: Apikey
  config.api_key['Apikey'] = 'YOUR API KEY'
  # Uncomment the following line to set a prefix for the API key, e.g. 'Bearer' (defaults to nil)
  #config.api_key_prefix['Apikey'] = 'Bearer'
end
api_instance = CloudmersiveConvertApiClient::EditPdfApi.new
input_file = File.new('/path/to/inputfile') # File | Input file to perform the operation on.
begin
  #Linearize and optimize a PDF for streaming download
  result = api_instance.edit_pdf_linearize(input_file)
  p result
rescue CloudmersiveConvertApiClient::ApiError => e
  puts "Exception when calling EditPdfApi->edit_pdf_linearize: #{e}"
end

Integrating this simple process will provide you with an opportunity to begin working with your PDF files prior to download completion.