Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
On Mon 16 Feb 2009 17:04:41 NZDT +1300, Stephen Irons wrote:
[...]
Looks like most PDF editors are, let's say, not quite there yet.
Use pdfimages (of xpdf) to extract all images. Check the watermark is a
bitmap graphics. If so, there's probably only one copy in the PDF, which you
could turn into all-transparent with a hex editor.
Use pdftk or whatever to remove the encryption. It's just a PITA anyway. You
may have to doctor some FOSS to do that.
Use pdftops, hope it's easier to doctor in the postscript.
Try loading it into OO with pdfimport (search OO extensions). Remove
background image (OO supports no other watermarks), reassemble PDF from OO.
Give feedback to the manufacturer of said second-hand device, featuring the
word morons or some such prominently. Buy other device next time.
Put up with the annoying printout, or use the non-dead-tree variety instead.
HTH,
Volker
Some success:
pdftoedit can convert from PDF to many different vector formats: SVG,
HPGL, PS, PDF, and so on. It has some built-in output formats, or it can
use Ghostscript to generate anything that GS can.
$ pdftoedit -f gs:pdfwrite input.pdf output.pdf
tells it to convert from PDF to PDF using Ghostscript pdfwrite driver.
By luck (not any command-line option), it converts to the screen-view
rather than the print-view, for all pages except the first two and the
last one.
The resulting PDF file makes Acrobat reader crash (trying to read memory
at 0x00000008), but Evince works fine.
The next step is to re-arrange the PDF file so that it prints 2-up on an
A4 page with page 2 behind page 1, and page 4 behind page 3, so that I
can print it on a duplex printer, guillotine the pages in half and bind
them nicely. A job for pstops...
Things that tried did not work:
* pdftops converted to the print-view with the watermark built in. If it
had converted to the screen-view, then it would have been fine, except
that the PS file was 20x the size of the PDF, but that seems to be
fairly typical.
* it took 15 minutes to convert 10 pages by clicking manually through
Inkscape. I do not have 3 hours to convert 120 pages.
* The PDF importer for OO v 2.4 is hopeless. Apparently, it is much
better for OO v 3 (beta), but I do not want to install that.
* pdfimages revealed that each page had its own copy of the watermark.
* I cannot take the PDF version everywhere that I like to read
instruction manuals [1]
<OT_RANT>
Canon have shown themselves to be pretty moronic in other ways too. My
digital still camera can take videos, but records the sound at 11024
samples per second -- 1 sample per second slower than 1/4 of 44100.
Totem-xine plays with stuttering audio, MPlayer makes the video speed up
and slow down quite obviously. ffmpeg used to reject the file, but the
latest version from Ubuntu works just fine.
Now, I am not sure that there is anything in the .AVI or .WAV
specification that *prohibits* this unusual sample rate -- the sample
rate is a 4-byte integer. Software would have to resample to 44100 or
48000 to include the sound on DVD or VCD, and it makes no difference to
the resampling algorithm what the before- and after- sample rates are.
But sound card hardware, even the cheapest, can usually play at
multiples or submultiples of 44100 and 48000, so suddenly you *HAVE* to
resample to be able to play without problems.
Or perhaps other movie player software pretends that the audio sample
rate is 11025, and adjusts the frame rate to 30.0027 fps by repeating
one frame every 368 (12s)?
</OT_RANT>
On the other hand, the camera plays with Linux very nicely over USB...
Stephen Irons
[1] Does anyone else read instruction manuals cover to cover? For
pleasure? For devices you don't own, but are thinking of buying? For
devices you aren't even thinking of buying?
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