Whether you can do this or not depends on the particular PDF file and sometimes the dream is a nightmare. In the case of this lecture, getting the text from the Quote Quad PDF is helpful but all the APL comes through garbled so I may have to re-type that part of it.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:27 AM, David Vincent-Jones < [email protected]> wrote: > Well, I really learnt something here .. never knew that it was possible > to cut text from a PDF image and paste into a word file. It appears to > be totally font independent. Works like a dream. Is this something that > only works under Linux? > > On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 20:55 -0500, Devon McCormick wrote: > > Thanks, Roger. This is helpful though the character set is still a > problem > > - I can't simply cut-and-paste the text and expect it to look the same. > At > > least I can avoid typing the non-APL parts of it. > > > > FWIW - I did find free OCR software on the web - > > > http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Business/Imaging_and_OCR_Tools/FreeOCR.html- > > that works fairly well from .JPGs - but not on APL, of course. > > > > On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Roger Hui <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Ken's Turing Lecture was republished recently in March/June 2007 > > > as Volume 35, Issue 1-2 or the APL Quote-Quad. > > > > > > > > > > http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1234321.1234322&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=22213405&CFTOKEN=22653326 > > > > > > I understand that this was not simply an image of the > > > 1979 CACM paper but a re-type(set) version. So either > > > the ACM would have the text, or the editors of the > > > APL Quote-Quote at the time would have the text. > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: Devon McCormick <[email protected]> > > > Date: Monday, February 16, 2009 9:53 > > > Subject: [Jgeneral] Copy of Ken's Turing lecture in text format? > > > To: J-general forum <[email protected]> > > > > > > > Hi - I'm working on a web page commemorating Ken's Turing award > > > > and am > > > > wondering if anyone has a copy of his lecture in a text format; > > > > i.e. not the > > > > PDF of images from the 1981 issue of Communications of the ACM, > > > > which I > > > > have. > > > > > > > > I'm currently typing it in but it's going to take a while. > > > > Fortunately, for > > > > the web page, I'll initially need only the introductory section, > > > > which I've > > > > already entered. Part of the difficulty of entering it is > > > > the APL character > > > > set (surprise) but I've decided that the APL385 Unicode font > > > > will do for > > > > this. Interestingly, one of the first "special" characters > > > > was _not_ a > > > > standard APL one - it's the double-headed arrow for "equivalence". > > > > > > > > In any case, I would like to get the whole lecture up in a more > > > > searchableform. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
