[fitsbits] Storing PDF and other graphics binary files in FITS {External}

[Barrett, Paul]

Or you could treat it as a variable length array and put it into the heap
of a binary table, which might enable you to divide the file into logical
units, i.e., one logical unit per row, if that is beneficial.

You still need to identify the data as a PDF. So as someone else suggested,
a mime-type keyword would be helpful, so the data could be piped to a PDF
reader.

 -- Paul


On Sun, Mar 15, 2026 at 12:26 PM jaffe via fitsbits <
fitsbits at listmgr.nrao.edu> wrote:

> For an interferometric application I am storing the binary data in the
> so-called OI-FITS convention of FITS.  But on the side I am generating
> rather complicated graphics files for my users, in this case in PDF.  I
> would like to store the .pdf file as a table in the same FITS file.  Is
> there a conventional way of doing this?  I could create a 1 row binary
> table with the entire PDF file as the single column, but this could be
> several megabytes and might bother some reading or writing routines.
>
> Is there any need to create a "GRAPHICS" extension to FITS?
>
> Walter
>
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