Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
Has anyone here been using or testing the PDF Import extension? I
tried it today for the first time and immediately discovered three
really interesting problems, the first two of which I wasn't expecting:
1) Some graphics (I assume ones with transparent backgrounds) show up
in the imported material with a black background, which is retained
when the edited document is exported again as a PDF.
2) Graphics that have been cropped within OpenOffice.org (before the
PDF was created) open uncropped in Draw after PDF Import, and the
uncropped graphics are retained when the edited document is exported
again as a PDF.
3) For one test I used a PDF created by someone else and verified that
(as I expected would happen) if you don't have the fonts used in the
original PDF, font substitution can cause some really interesting --
and very unwanted -- effects, which are preserved when the edited doc
is exported again to PDF.
I just checked and (as expected) all of these problems have been
reported, but just though members of this list might like to know...
and perhaps you've found some other issues with the extension?
In limited circumstances (mainly or entirely text, for which you have
the fonts) it works great. Here's another thing to look out for;
again, it's something I expected:
Each line of text appears in a separate text box. If part of the line
of text is in a different font or font variation (for example, bold or
italic), that part of the line is in a separate text box. Thus a
single line of text may contain several separate text boxes. If you
edit the text in the first box, the result may overlap the text in the
second box or leave a conspicuous gap between the two portions of
text. If this occurs, you need to manually adjust the spacing between
the boxes.
--Jean
I played with the import a bit. It's OK. But, OpenOffice will hardly
replace Acrobat Professional (or Pro Extended) in the PDF department for
print docs. Still, having the PDF import and editing capability in OOo
is handy for less exacting work.
Neither Writer nor Word will replace FrameMaker, InDesign, or Quark for
the time being for page layouts or attractive typography for print docs
because their algorithms used for setting type are better for line
fitting of body text.
Still, for less picky, picky types, Writer's PDFs are fine. Personally,
I often initially work with Writer, then convert to Word Pro 2007. And
afterwards, convert to FrameMaker (or InDesign, on occasion) if
attractive typesetting is an important objective. FrameMaker's master
docs and cross references are hard to beat, though. Writer's code
appears too bloated, and Word tends to crash large documents for me.
Just my dos centavos.
Gary.
--
Gary Schnabl
2775 Honorah
Detroit MI 48209
(734) 245-3324
