Screw Drivers and PDF Files

[Randy McLaughlin]

From: "der Mouse" <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 12:41 AM


>> The point was that anyone that wants to be able to easily handle
>> PDF's can do so very cheaply and are not required to deal with either
>> Micro$loth or Adobe.
>
> Easily?
>
> Which of those "several open source packages" includes a scriptable
> (ie, command-line) tool to extract the embedded images from a PDF?
> (Not to render them and give the resulting rendered image, but to
> extract the image itself.)  Certainly ghostscript couldn't last time I
> looked.
>
> Without that, I can't consider it fair to say that I can "easily handle
> PDFs", since that's the second most common thing I want to do with
> PDFs.  (The first most common is to convert to PostScript for printing,
> which ghostscript does do a reasonably good job of.)

Like always if anyone wants to do a task they either use what's available 
and work with its means or they develope their own.

>> More to the point people complaining over Windoze being a closed
>> system misses the point that this group is filled with people that
>> never gave a thought to open source OS's when they got their classic
>> systems.
>
> Perhaps you see no difference between running classic closed-source
> software on a classic machine with no networking, often no connection
> to anything else, and running modern closed-source software on a modern
> machine with a network link.
>
> I, on the other hand, see many differences, at least a few of which
> would be relevant for me if I had any machines to which the question
> even applied.
>
> /~\ The ASCII der Mouse
> \ / Ribbon Campaign
> X  Against HTML        mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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Then as now the OS is a tool to be used, it can be a conduit to achieving 
the task at hand.

Networking was not invented on PC's I setup many 8 bit networks.

Then as now I use what is available to achieve the desired goal.

Yes windows today is completely equivalent to the different OS's I've used 
on a variety of systems since I started in the mid 70's.  The fact that 
Micro$loth has created a bloated giant that self destructs with time is a 
side issue.  The open source equivalent Linux is also a bloated giant.

I can not support my clients wishes by using CP/M or any other classic 
environment.  I would go broke trying to convince them to go the way I want 
them to go.  I setup Linux servers and Windoze workstations not because I 
believe that it is perfect but it is the best I can do within the boundaries 
I live in.

To decide to not use any particular piece of hardware or software that can 
easily and cheaply do a desired job then whine because other people don't 
bend over backwards to support your wishes for no charge is idiotic.

If you don't like PDF's I recommend that you start a monastery to copy by 
hand any documents you want archived.


Randy
www.s100-manuals.com