William W. Austin wrote:
On 2005-07-31 15:16:32, Theodore Raphan wrote:
Hi,
It would be helpful to be able to read a PDF file, chaange the file
and write it
back in another file format. This would be important as the odt file
format
becomes popular. As is there is no way to do this in Open Office.
Since Open
Office already has the code to write PDF files, why can't this be
inverted to
read them and put it into odt format. Then it could be written in any
format.
I don't want to sound too pessimistic here, but just as you have all
the ingredients present in an omlette, disassebling them back to form
the original eggs is a decidely non-trivial matter.
Yes, it is possible to recover text. Generally. However much
formatting is lost (especially the basic rules used to create the
formatting. Internal variables? Just to touch on a couple of the
simpler items ... Was that "3" a variable for a section number or was
it a human-typed "3"? Was that hyphenated word
intentionally-hyphenated by a human or was it an automatic hyphen
inserted by the program creating the pdf file. And table formats... it
may be possible to recover very simple tables - but it is quite likely
only the contents can be recovered.
Graphical images? Say you had created a chart (graph) containing
15,000 points you had plotted. Recover it? How do you feel about a
jpeg image (or postscript)... But truly to recover it, you need to
recreate the original spreadsheet data-point set from which it was
created. While it might be theoretically possible, in many cases it
may literally be impossible.
And again, the above are just *few* of the preliminary issues.
Text, yes. Formatting (generally) no. Graphics (generally) not ideal
- if possible. Footnotes, TOC, indexes, hyperlinks, other interesting
comodities ... good luck. A semblance? Maybe. Real recovery?
Probably a loooooooooooooooong way off.
And even text recovery can become extremely difficult if you're working
with magazine-style layouts, with columns, captions, and sidebars.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The pathetic hope that the White House will turn a Caligula into a
Marcus Aurelius is as naïve as the fear that ultimate power inevitably
corrupts."
-- James D. Barber (1930-2004)
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