[softwarelist] Re: pdf-import
- From: John Pettigrew <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: davidpilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 18:33:10 +0100
You wrote:
> In message <94dbe87b4e.martinv@xxxxxx>
> Martin Vethake <martinv@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > Exactly, the 'D' in 'PDF' has always annoyed me. PDF is by no means
> > a 'Document', it is rather a _printed_ document. You better have the
> > original somewhere or may be screwed royally.
>
> The problem is that !PDF goes down to a particularly low level (single
> characters) to ensure accurate rendering. It could preserve more of the text
> structure at the expense of not preserving the original formatting exactly
> [snip] So, to sum it up: OvationPro (or any other word processor) with PDF
> import could do a much better job.
True. For example, KWrite (the word-processor in the KOffice suite) does a
fairly respectable job of importing PDFs in an editable way. It maintains text
stories and rough placement, as well as font formatting. I've used it to
rescue documents sent to clients by authors as PDFs only.
Given that the code will be GPL (as part of the KDE software package), it's
available for study for pointers on how to do this. Or it might even be ripped
out into an external filter for OvPro.
John
--
John Pettigrew
http://john.pettigrew.org.uk/
http://john.pettigrew.org.uk/blog/
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