#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use PDF::Create;
use Font::AFM;

my $page = $pdf->new_page('MediaBox' => [ 0, 0, 650, 920 ]);
my $fn = $pdf->font(
   'Subtype'  => 'Type1',
   'Encoding' => 'WinAnsiEncoding',
   'BaseFont' => 'Helvetica'
);
$page = PDFColumn(
    {
        page => $page,
        font => $fn,
        text => $text,
        right => 250,
        height => 850,
        fontsize => 15
    }
);
$pdf->close;


sub
PDFColumn
{
# get the hashref of parameters:
    my $params = shift;

# get the critical parameters and return if they are not present:
    my $page = $params->{page};
    return unless $page;
    my $font = $params->{font};
    return $page unless $font;

# get the non-critical parameters or their default values:
    my $text = $params->{text} || "";
    my $fontsize = $params->{fontsize} || 10;
    my $lineheight = $params->{lineheight} || $fontsize * 1.4;
    my $left = $params->{left} || 50;
    my $right = $params->{right} || 300;
    my $height = $params->{height} || 750;

# get the afm info:
    my $afm_file = $page->{'pdf'}{'fonts'}{$font}{'BaseFont'}[1];
    my $afm = new Font::AFM $afm_file;

# get the text and the width of the column:
    my @text = split /\s+/, $text;
    my $line = shift @text;
    my $width = $right - $left;

# loop through the text sending each new line to the PDF page:
    while (@text) {
        my $word = shift @text;
        if ($afm->stringwidth($line . " " . $word, $fontsize) > $width) {
            $page->string($font, $fontsize, $left, $height, $line );
            $line = $word;
            $height -= $lineheight;
        }
        else {
            $line .= " " . $word;
        }
        $page->string($font, $fontsize, $left, $height, $line ) if @text == 0;
    }

# return the modified page:
    return $page;
}