@disciple:
Thanks for the info, I'll look it up !
@all
I've been revisiting pdf utilities for my work and for a workshop at my professional association, and I came up with a pet package...I thought sharing it with all you Puppy-ists out there would be appropriate!
So... it's here:
http://limelinx.com/files/dc503b74df836 ... d291614b9b
And here's a little blurb about it. (It's in the docs, too.)
/////////////////////////////
musher0's note about pdf utilities, Sept. 25, 2010
==================================================
This is a trimmed down xpdf package... without xpdf. Since most new Puppies come with epdfview, it seemed like an overkill to include the actual xpdf executable, however good it may be.
The same reasoning was applied to the exclusion of pdftops and pdftopppm. pdftops being replaced with the native print-to-PDF default printer, and,judging from the man files, it seemed pdftoppm overlapped what pdftoimages is doing.
pdftotext is ok if you just need to consult some pdf as text, for some reason, but it is a bit short if you want to edit pdf files in a word processor or html editor and resave ("re-print" ?) your work in pdf format. So I replaced it with pdftohtml, although the two packages are from different authors. If you absolutely need a text copy of a pdf file, use pdftohtml, load the resulting file in a word processor and then save that to txt format.
This trimming down reduced the original pet size from 11 Mg to a little less than 3Mg. Hopefully this reduction in archive size will not affect the usefulness of the entire xpdf "suite" for the user.
Technically, you may still need to configure the .xpdfrc file in /root,even if the actual xpdf is not included, since all pdfto* executables except pdftohtml refer to it upon loading.
I included a *.dtd file from the Windows package of pdftohtml, which you may need -- or not --, when using the -xml parameter with this program.
Please remember that all these pdfto* executables are console apps, so their name does not appear in the window manager (jwm or whatever) menu. You will have to open a console to invoke them.
Finally, the advantages of this re-visited package are still current. In one sentence:
1) these pdf tools
2) usable under Linux,
3) save you
a) the cost of a shareware or commercial pdf processor and
b) the time you'd spend learning a new program,
4) so you can focus more on your editing.
////////////////////////////
Any constructive feedback welcome. Enjoy!
BFN