Re: AN: GuruGram #46 ...

From: Active8 (reply2group_at_ndbbm.net)
Date: 02/26/05 

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 23:15:03 -0500

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 21:17:37 -0500, Spehro Pefhany wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:26:46 -0500, the renowned Active8
> <reply2group@ndbbm.net> wrote:
>
>>On 25 Feb 2005 19:54:26 GMT, Ian Stirling wrote:
>>
>>> In sci.electronics.design Don Lancaster <don@tinaja.com> wrote:
>>>> ... is now available for free download as
>>>> http://www.tinaja.com/glib/extract1.pdf
>>>>
>>>> It is on programatically xtracting text and content from Acrobat .PDF files.
>>>
>>> I've had good results with xpdf.
>>> http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/
>>> pdftops and pdftotext both work well.
>>
>><rant>
>>Acrobat Pro v6.0 works for me, now (POS that it is.)
>>
>>Either pdf995 or one of those free deals I got has a text extract
>>facility, but the programs (best used to convert to ps or pdf) all
>>suck on some features like making bookmarks and some of the other
>>automagic sh*t I forgot about since getting Acrobat.
>>
>>Should be AcroFat. It hogs as much or more mem than Orcad,
>>Dreamweaver, etc. And stoopid! Can't even remember the last save dir
>>once it shuts down. You can't shut the main window while a pdf is
>>open in the browser and when you click the back button, if another
>>pdf is open somewhere, it gives you the choice to exit Acrobat or
>>leave it running in the browser. But sometimes it's wrong and still
>>asks, so I leave it open to remember the save dir and so it doesn't
>>have to load again to get the next pdf file. If I wait too long, it
>>realizes there are no other instances and shuts itself down,
>>forgetting everything.
>
> Adobe Illustrator will WYSYWIG edit PDF documents (one page at a
> time). You can remove elements for use elsewhere and so on. Very
> useful. More indirectly, but cheaper, you can print a PDF to PS, and
> using (free) Ghostscript you can convert PS it to Adobe Illustrator
> (.ai) format (ps2ai.bat), and then WYSYWIG edit it with Mayura Draw
> (free trial and $39 to register).
>
>>Luckily Firefox "save as" *always* remembers the save dir and is
>>*always* able to save a pdf, unlike MSIE. It tries to save an html
>>page.
>></rant>
>
> But it gives errors when Acrobat reader exits about half the time
> (Acrobat 5 anyway), and *sometimes* can't handle large PDFs properly
> inside a browser window,

6.0 takes "forever" to start up in the browser or alone. In the
browser, you can't do anything while that's happening and the first
page loads. Accidentally scroll beyond what's loaded and you'll wait
forever for just a screen refresh 'til it's done and the browser is
useless in the mean time. I sometimes have 20 tabs open in one
Firefox and others running too. I haven't had a too large prob,
AFAIK.

>and sometimes you just have to kill Acrobat
> from the task manager and restart it.

Same old sh*t, different day.

>Not pleasant. Is 6.0 any better
> in that regard? Do I have to add another half-gigabyte of RAM to run
> it?

I'm running on 256 MB - I'm overdue for another stick or 3. RamPage
helps free up mem. Right now I'm down to 25 MB with Acrobat open in
a browser with 20 tabs, one other instance of Firefox, Dialog news
reader, Hamster NNTP server, UltraEdit with a gazillion files open,
Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise - another gazillion files, Explorer,
PerfMon, ... that's it. PGPTray, Zone Alarm, AntiVir. Some jackass
is running Java in a page, too. Unless Sun Java just forgot to shut
down - I suspect it does that.

I don't let WinAmp Agent, CD Creator/Direct CD, or Mozilla Quick
Start run in the tray these days because it just sucks mem. I took
the Open Office Quick Start out too.

So I'm at 25 MB now. Should I try starting Orcad or Dreamweaver ;)

I lost a browser before this post. I changed virtual desktops (to
run the Hamster script that found your reply) while the OS was doing
the pagefile thing (I clicked refresh on TV guide :( - ask Don. He'd
say cut the TV power cord) and the browser did the musical desktop
thing and shut down. 

-- 
Best Regards,
Mike
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