External link for show_pdf_page

[Andreasox]

Is it possible to link to an external file using show_pdf_page?
The use case is to reference external graphics on an existing page without having to recreate the PDF

[JorjMcKie]

By design, show_pdf_page is incapable of duplicating any annotation. This cannot be changed, because the source page is converted to a so-called "Form XObject". These objects cannot have annotations.
Here, annotation means annotation the sense of PDF, which hence includes links and form fields.

All you can do is recreating links yourself on the target page: every annotation must be a child of the page that shows it - the target page in our case.

You must write code that extracts the links of the source page links = srcpage.get_links().
Then compute a matrix that converts the source (page) rectangle coordinates to those of the bbox on the target page.
Fortunately (😉), there is a convenience method torect() in the Rect/IRect classes.
So a snippet may look like this (please confirm details / typos ...):

links = srcpage.get_links()
tarpage.show_pdf_page(bbox, srcdoc, srcpage.number)
mat = srcpage.rect.torect(bbox)  # compute transformation matrix
for link in links:  # recreate links on target page
    link["from"] *= mat  # convert to target coordinates
    tarpage.insert_link(link)

Please note:

1. obviously only works for external links
2. if this also involves rotations, the matrix mat must be modified accordingly

[JorjMcKie]

Ah, I just realized that I did not understand your request.
The answer is NO, cannot be done in the way you describe it.

[JorjMcKie]

You can only "import" source pages of a PDF - and then optionally only show sub-rectangles of it on the target.

[Andreasox]

Thanks for the explanation, so PDF is in essence static in this aspect

[JorjMcKie]

yes, correct

[JorjMcKie]

It would be easier to directly define a link in the target, that points to a certain page in some other file. I.e. use LINK_GOTOR kind.