Open Source PDF Editor?

Flamed Diving

Hey, I need an editor that can compress PDF files and also export as different file types, such as HTML, TXT, etc.

Is there such a free program?

Capt'n Midnight

PDF's are already compressed, like PNG or TIFF.

They can be generated as text or as images, you can save the text but if done as image then you need OCR, they can also be protected when generated to prevent printing or extraction and stuff.

pdfsplitandmerge will separate out pages if that's any use

after that you are looking at pdfcreator to print to TIF or JPG and then perform OCR on the image


Don't forget that all PDF's are copyright like any fixed media, so you may not be entitled to extract text. In many cases you should ask the copyright holder for the original document.

Orion

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Don't forget that all PDF's are copyright like any fixed media, so you may not be entitled to extract text. In many cases you should ask the copyright holder for the original document.

Not quite true Capt'n. PDFs are just documents like any other. Just because they are PDF doesn't make them copyrighted. Copyright rests with the author of any document no matter what the format.

As for the OP - another poster recently posted a utility for OO.o for importing PDFs - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055533011.

Capt'n Midnight

Copyright exists when the document is saved.

PDF is probably the most common document type that allows viewing on screen and can be set to protect copyright by not allowing you to print it or extract text from it. If someone has gone to the trouble to protect a PDF like this then it's fairly clear that they don't allow extracting text from the document.

If you don't mind the document being re-edited it's normal to send the original. Or to put it another way, if you want to try to limit people breaking your copyright but still allow them to read it without too much trouble then PDF is probably the most convenient format to use.

Flamed Diving

Ok, well it's mainly resizing the file to fit on my ebook that i want. On Acrobat Pro you can resize very easily, but its expensive.

Anyway, thanks for ideas.

mdebets

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Copyright exists when the document is saved.

PDF is probably the most common document type that allows viewing on screen and can be set to protect copyright by not allowing you to print it or extract text from it. If someone has gone to the trouble to protect a PDF like this then it's fairly clear that they don't allow extracting text from the document.

If you don't mind the document being re-edited it's normal to send the original. Or to put it another way, if you want to try to limit people breaking your copyright but still allow them to read it without too much trouble then PDF is probably the most convenient format to use.

That's not true. The format of a document has nothing to do with the licence under which the document is published. There are many PDFs under Creative Commons or similar licences.

Capt'n Midnight

Let me try again , a protected PDF is probably a sign that the person doesn't want the document contents copied. Copyright automatically exists when a file is saved.

That most copyright is not enforced for most documents doesn't mean that all documents are public domain.

Creative commons , GPL and other such licenses are NOT public domain, there are still terms and conditions to their usage.

Flamed Diving

Well, im my case I just want to take a PDF copy of National Geographic (which I paid for) and reduce its file size from 45mb to something more reasonable.

I know that Acrobat Pro can do this quite easily. Is there a free alternative that will reduce this file?

Capt'n Midnight

when you say resize do you mean the font or the page or the file size ?

install pdfcreator from sourcefourge and print to it ,
you can change the page size and resolution
you could try printing to a multipage TIFF if you have a viewer on the device that can read them
all else fails pdf split and merge and generate individual pages and then highlight them all and with pdfcreator as default printer and autosave set to jpg you can right click and print them in one go - messsy though

Flamed Diving

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

when you say resize do you mean the font or the page or the file size ?

install pdfcreator from sourcefourge and print to it ,
you can change the page size and resolution
you could try printing to a multipage TIFF if you have a viewer on the device that can read them
all else fails pdf split and merge and generate individual pages and then highlight them all and with pdfcreator as default printer and autosave set to jpg you can right click and print them in one go - messsy though

I mean compress the file. Make the file size smaller than 45mb.

Capt'n Midnight

print it at a lower resolution, start by using 150dpi or half the documents current resolution

make sure you don't print in colour , black and white
check what other formats the ebook can use as well.

BTW pdfs are compressed already so zipping won't work

Flamed Diving

I dont understand what you mean by print? I'm not looking to print the thing out, I want to make is smaller so it wont take up 1/4 of my ebooks memory.

ethernet

Flamed Diving wrote: »

I dont understand what you mean by print? I'm not looking to print the thing out, I want to make is smaller so it wont take up 1/4 of my ebooks memory.

If using the utility mentioned above (PDF Creator), you send it to the PDF Creator "printer" and set compress options, document title and so on to create the (more highly-compressed) PDF file.

croo

Hey, I need an editor that can compress PDF files and also export as different file types, such as HTML, TXT, etc.

Is there such a free program?

Now, do you mean free or open source?

I noticed in the latest ubuntu (9.04) the default file viewer is Okular http://okular.kde.org/
With a PDF open in okular one of the options in the File->Export menus is "Plain Text" and it does indeed save text only versions of your files. Now, I would have thought one of the big pluses of National Geographic are its wonderful photos so perhaps this is not what you meant?

re: PDF & Protection
While you can lock a PDF, its main purpose is to ease the sharing of documents. If you share a word or odf document the file contains the content (text) plus a description of the fonts used. If the person you send the file to does not have the same fonts installed om their system then the layout of your document will change and mostly likely not look as you intended. A PDF however includes the actual fonts used so the target computer always has the fonts and can always see the document precisely as it was intended. Its no coincidence that the company who initiated this standard is one that is also perhaps the biggest owner of "fonts" in the world. Any protection offered by PDF is mostly chance, mainly adobe wished to protect their fonts! After all if protection of copyright is the goal then a PDF that can simply be copied and shared is hardly and protection against that!

croo

croo wrote: »

ubuntu (9.04) the default file viewer is Okular

Actually, that's not correct - you must right click and select okular from the list of available programs.

dueyfinster

Their is an OpenOffice.org plugin from Sun that allows limited editing of PDF's and I think one of the image programs (Inkscape?) allow this also.

I don't think either solution is what you want (as you want it compressed).