Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2020 01:16:14 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: Jordan <freebsd@jdev.sent.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> Subject: Re: PDF Documents Manipulation Software options Message-ID: <20200423011614.b3bff716.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <b9eab5c4-0619-4d9d-ba05-7ac3ec24bfaa@www.fastmail.com> References: <09e273ff-4d9d-47eb-a6e1-d91f18c8a0ef@www.fastmail.com> <20200423002530.87cf0d91.freebsd@edvax.de> <b9eab5c4-0619-4d9d-ba05-7ac3ec24bfaa@www.fastmail.com>
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On Wed, 22 Apr 2020 15:50:03 -0700, Jordan wrote: > I agree, manually manipulating PDFs with a GUI is not very efficient, > however, the work I do cannot be automated (atleast I haven't found > a way). Okay, so you have a scope of what you're trying to do. > On a PDF I may have to extract out pages 3, 5 and 14 into a new 3 > page PDF because I only need the data from pages 3, 5 and 14. The > very next PDF file I work on I may need to extract out 20 pages, all > in a row, from pages 20 to 40. The next PDF file I may need the > first and last page. There is absolutely no common denominator from > these three PDF's and the only thing common is that I need to extract > pages. While you will surely agree that pdftk can do this, I assume that you also have to look at the pages you're going to process. That's where probably Gimp's or LibreOffice's PDF support is the better tool. This matches a lot with your further description: You need interactive visual inspection, and basically "one of a kind"-work has to be done. > It is easier to visually click, hold CTRL to continue highlighting > pages and then right click, extract (which creates a new PDF) and > then drag and drop the new PDF pages into a GUI file manager (such > as Thunar) to create the new PDF. Many years ago, I had to do something similar with PDF files only containing images of circuit boards. I decided to use pdfimages (from the xpdf package) first, then previewing them in a GUI file manager with preview support; I deleted the non-needed images, renumbered what required renumbering, and then run my png2pdf.sh script (that uses ImageMagicK's convert program in combination with pdftk) on the "result directory", which generated a new PDF file containing only the diagrams needed. Of course, this does not work for PDF files containing text, but for this specific task, there is no text, only Zuul. ;-) > I don't see how CLI tools will work with the above example > workflows although I am all ears to hearing others opinions. A CLI tool in combination with a "selector" (GUI file manager) would probably be possible, but limited (as I mentioned). You could of course do something like this: 1. use pdftk to split PDF input file with n pages into n PDF files, one for each page 2. use GUI file manager for preview, maybe deleting and maybe re-ordering files 3. use pdftk on n-k files to generate new PDF output file with n-k pages The actions for steps 1 and 3 can be launched from the file manager's context menu for the specific directory, so you don't even have to use a terminal here. However, this all doesn't look very convenient even when presented in pseudo code. :-) > I know "professional" PDF software such as Adobe Acrobat Pro works > but it is only compatible with Windows (and maybe GNU/Linux). I don't know if it is possible to use it with wine, it _might_ be possible; however, licensing issues and costs are significant here (check Adobe's "always online" licensing stuff if you want to get scared). Maybe you can try Gimpshop (a "Photoshop"-like variant of Gimp, which has PDF support that might be exactly what you need). Furthermore, the office applications (LibreOffice and OpenOffice, I never know which one I should name) will probably also be able to do this. > I found another proprietary PDF Professional software but it is > only available for Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux. I am on a quest > to find something for FreeBSD as I believe it to be superior OS > than the aforementioned. Using a "Windows" or a Linux program is often possible, but of course the vendors won't tell you about this, because they do not support FreeBSD as a platform, do no testing on that platform, don't care about that platform, and probably don't even know about that platform. And spending $$$$$ just to find out it doesn't work surely isn't acceptable. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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