GDAL Missing PDF Support (at least when installed as dependency for QGIS3)

[mhanmore]

The issue The GDAL build via MacPorts as part of qgis3 installation currently lacks support for PDF files, which means qgis3 behaves as though PDF files don't exist.

Expected behavior QGIS ships with PDF support in all other distribution modes. GDAL as a QGIS3 dependency should therefore be built with poppler to enable PDF support.

I was able to fix the problem with sudo port install poppler followed by sudo port install gdal +pdf +poppler

Steps to reproduce

1. Install GDAL as a qgis3 dependency via MacPorts using sudo port install qgis3.
2. Attempt to open or georeceference a PDF in Qgis3
3. Run gdalinfo --formats | grep -i pdf.
4. Observe that PDF support is not listed.

System Information

• OS: macOS: Sonoma on M3 Max
• GDAL Versions: Broken: gdal @3.9.0_0+postgresql16+proj9 Fixed: gdal @3.9.0_0+poppler+postgresql16+proj9

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Sounds like you've already found the solution. The gdal port doesn't have pdf support enabled by default and you can enable it by installing it with the +poppler variant. (It does not have a +pdf variant.) gdal has many other variants for optional features that you may want to enable. port variants gdal shows you what they are.

[mhanmore]

Many thanks. If that is a deliberate GDAL deployment decision then I think there is still a change that needs to be made int he QGIS3 port, which needs to specify gdal +poppler in order to achieve feature parity with the other QGIS distribution options.