Screw Drivers and PDF Files

[Randy McLaughlin]

From: "der Mouse" <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 3:06 PM


> > If you have to muck with a PDF then the PDF should never have been
> > generated.
>
> And that is what I (and others) have been saying all along: please
> don't shove scans into a PDF!
>
> > PDF is an END format -- it is assumed that the information and
> > graphics are perfect BEFORE creating it.
>
> It thus assumes there will never be any reason to pull it apart.  Even
> if the information *is* perfect, that is often false.
>
> > If you have bad PDF files that you have a need to manipulate, blame
> > the person who created the PDF, not the PDF format itself!
>
> That's exactly what we have been doing - or more precisely, we've been
> blaming those who chose PDF as the format for distributing
> documentation scans.
>
> Since no format will be perfect for all uses, choosing a packaging
> format which is designed around the assumption that the package will
> never be pulled apart is..broken.
>
> > What *is* your need to extract images out of PDF?
>
> Usually, to postprocess the page scan for better results, whatever
> "better" means at the moment in question.
>
> For example, a page scan may have a different white point on one side
> than the other, and I may want to remove that bias before printing.  I
> may want to take a greyscale-scanned page and convert it to bilevel for
> printing (the printer's conversion, usually by dithering, will not
> always be the best for what I want).  I may want to throw the scan at
> some OCR technology.  I may even want to just look at it, or part of
> it, on-screen - if you think PDF displayers are always at least as good
> at displaying scanned page images as programs designed for image
> display, you have either an unrealistically good impression of PDF
> displayers or an unrealistically bad impression of image displayers.
>
> /~\ The ASCII der Mouse
> \ / Ribbon Campaign
>  X  Against HTML        mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
> / \ Email!      7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Instead of blaming people like myself for doing it "the wrong way" why don't
you do it and let us judge if we like it your way.

If we like what you are doing better then we can all stop and let you do it
all ;-)

I'll set aside a few giga-bytes for all the manuals you scan.

Randy
www.s100-manuals.com