[plug] [OT] PDF Conversions

[Timothy White]

I'm doing some experiments with PS and PDF. Knowing that PS is text I
can edit different aspects of the documents by hand or through scripts
without having to change formats. But PDF is binary (encapsulated?) so I
can't do the same. If I convert the PS to PDF then the text remains text
and I can select it and extract it with pdftotext (which is xpdf doing
the work.) But if I try and convert the document back to PS the text is
no longer text and the file becomes like an image. The same happens for
documents that start as PDF with extractable text.
What is worse is I can extract the text from the PDF but the text isn't
retained if I convert from PDF to PS.
So:
$pdftotext document.pdf
Gives the contents in ascii
$pdftops document.pdf
Gives a plain 'image'
$pdf2ps document.pdf
Also gives a plain image (note that pdf2ps is Ghost Script while pdftops
is Xpdf)

Any Ideas?

Tim

--
Tim White - Use the Fox, Luke!
PGP/GPG id: 602E944D, Pub Key Serv: subkeys.pgp.net
Fingerprint: 04C2 9682 B7B2 3006 009D  A9F3 067E EDCD 602E 944D
Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature to help me spread!
--
Linux linmedia 2.6.10linmedia #4 Mon Feb 21 21:19:38 WST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.plug.org.au/pipermail/plug/attachments/20050407/090d567b/attachment.pgp>