On Mon, 13 Aug 2001 16:26:6 +0800, J. J. Young wrote:
>> Does anyone know of a free DOS program that will convert
>> PDF files to text?
> Sam, go to:
> http://www.geocities.com/rlcgreen/txtms03.htm#misctxt
> and scroll down further to find Xpdf - Toolkit for extracting
> text/information/images from Adobe PDF files..
I downloaded it, all 1522954 bytes of it, but haven't installed
it yet.
> I've not used it, preferring to save my HDD space and let Google
> do the conversion for online PDFs (quicker than the Adobe email
> request service).
I have heard about the Adobe email request service but have never
tried to use it. How do you use the google service? If you have
to email them a half-meg PDF file that you have downloaded from the
web and then wait for them to translate it and email you a text
document, then that also would be a PITA.
> If it's online stuff you're dealing with, please
> point the site owner toward:
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html
> and request an HTML or text alternative for the vast majority of
> users who are unlikely to need a commercial-quality printout.
I think the reason why web sites make these PDF documents available
is that they want to include pictures and diagrams and graphs.
Some users just need the textual information and they can live
without the graphics stuff; however, sometimes the text will say
things like "to perform this procedure, refer to figure A. Make
sure that switches 1 and 2 are on the "on" position and that switch
3 is on the "off" position. Then refer to figure B. Turn knob 1
on sub-assembly 5 until it is indexed as shown in figure C.", etc.
In cases like this, text alone will not suffice unless you are
really good at stealing a ride on the clue train. Sometimes you
might just want to read the text just in order to figure out what
the device does before you even think about messing with it.
Sam Heywood
-- This mail was written by user of The Arachne Browser - http://arachne.cz/
