Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with software and pdf

Are there any free Mac programs to remove PDF encryption?

raddevon — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:39:12 -0800

Are there any free Mac programs to remove PDF encryption? I purchased a PDF book which I would like to transfer to my new Kindle. I have done the transfer, but the Kindle cannot open the book. I assume this is because the book is encrypted. Does anyone know of a free program for the Mac which will remove this encryption?

Editable PDFs?

Kattiara17 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:09:58 -0800

I want to be able to create editable, form-based PDFs. What software do I need? I want to be able to create editable, form-based PDFs. For example, if you look at this W4 form, you can click and type information into each of the preset fields.

What software do I need to be able to do this? My google-fu is failing me; it looks like I need to buy Adobe Acrobat, but is that the only option? If it is, does it matter as far as Standard vs. Pro edition?

Splitting a PDF by bookmark

Ritchie — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:17:08 -0800

I'm looking for some inexpensive/free solution to splitting a PDF by bookmark (first level bookmark), and using the bookmark names for the filenames of the split PDF. I've done some research already and discovered 2 products that are almost good enough: PDF Split-Merge and PDF Split and Merge.

The only drawback to PDF Split-Merge is that it costs USD$20-30 per user, and I have about 12 users to roll it out to. (That may sound like nothing, but my IT department runs on a literal shoestring. The other day we each got given a roll of duct-tape so each of us can repair the disintegrating carpet in our respective cubicles.)

The only drawback to PDF Split and Merge (which is free and open-source), is that when it splits the PDF, it doesn't use the bookmark names as filenames. Instead you get generic filenames with an appended counter based on page number.

I've done some scripting, so I'm open to hearing about, for example, Perl modules that help with this. My searches on CPAN have led me to PDF::Core and PDF::Parse, which don't really seem to be built for this.

How do I seek and destroy image-only PDF's?

randex8 — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:47:59 -0800

Is there Mac-based software available that will search my entire hard drive or designated folders for image-only PDF files (have not been OCR'ed) and then automatically run OCR (using Acrobat Pro or whatever) and override the original file with a searchable version? I am in the process of scanning all of my personal and business files. I have been very pleased with the results so far and love the ease of using Spotlight or Google Desktop to locate searchable PDF files, etc.

However, I have hundreds of older PDF's that are image-only randomly scattered in different folders. Currently, I have been opening each questionable PDF and manually checking whether it is image-only or searchable. If the PDF is image-only I manually run OCR using Acrobat Pro and then save the searchable version over the original file.

I am looking for a way to automate this tedious process. So far, I have only been able to find scripts and the like that will allow you to batch process groups of PDF's. I am looking for something that will "search and destroy" on its own.

I have a MacBook running OS X 10.5.6, Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 and a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner.

What software is helpful for writing a masters thesis?

metricfan — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:30:12 -0800

What software is helpful for writing a masters thesis? I'm working my thesis for my M.A. and I have a non-tablet PC and use OneNote a lot. What are some helpful computer programs or tips for doing research?

Here are the things I need right now:

I really need a program to allow me to take notes on PDFs directly. It seems like most of my reading is on here, and I need to be able to write in the margins like I do with actual printed things. I am broke, so I was hoping for a free program/under 30-ish dollars. Someone asked this question like two years ago, and there was not real answer.

Also, how can I import a PDF in OneNote? Actually, any tips for OneNote would be amazing.

I need a good citation program or something because Refworks has turned out to be a bust.

Is Evernote really good?

Any advice or tips are welcome.

About my thesis: I'm a communication studies ma student, and I'm writing about popular culture and politics. Specifically, I am using Barry Brummett's mosaic method in his book Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture to analyze TDS and other news media surrounding Obama's race speech.

SO! If you have any research suggestions for that, that's cool too. Though, as a masters student I've taken the fundamental classes like classical rhetoric, so really abstractly related things like Aristotle's On Rhetoric (unless with a specific link to my project) I don't really need to hear.

I appreciate the help, thanks in advance.

Free software to write on PDFs with my tablet?

jk252b — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:55:10 -0800

PDF editing software for Mac to use with my Wacom tablet? I recently bought a Wacom Bamboo tablet thinking it would revolutionize my graduate school research by allowing me to write directly on PDF documents without having to print them out.

Does anyone know of software that exists to allow me to write directly on PDF documents, and save them in their original format.

I know about Skim but that doesn't work to draw directly on the page.

FormulatePro starts to get at what I want, but any documents you write on are saved in the ".formulate". I know I can print to PDF, which is better than nothing, but it's an annoying step that I'd like to avoid if I can.

It seems like PDFpen and PDFclerk do what I want, but I'd prefer NOT to pay $50 after having spent $70 on the tablet.

Does any freeware or really cheap (<20$) software exist to do this?

Picture a Venn diagram with 3 circles: LaTeX, Emacs, Mac. I'd like to live in the intersection.

gleuschk — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:08:47 -0800

Mac users who write LaTeX documents in Emacs (with or without AucTeX), please tell me about your workflow. My wife and I both recently switched (back) to Macs from Windows machines. We're mathematicians, and we both live -- or used to live -- pretty much completely inside an Emacs buffer, writing LaTeX. We've had a terrible time approximating our Windows setups on the new Macs. What Emacs version do you people use? (I've tried Aquamacs and Carbon Emacs.) What PDF previewer? (Skim, Preview, something else?) Most importantly: how is everything tied together, in your .emacs or elsewhere?

Finally, please help me understand what the point of AucTeX is. Both the emacs versions I've tried come with it pre-installed. So far, all I can see is that it adds unnecesary keystrokes when I want to typeset something, and destroys all my useful muscle-memory. Do you use it? Does it make your life better/easier?

Revision/version control software for stuff that isn't source code...

Chunder — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:40:18 -0800

Is there such a thing as version/revision control software for printed documents? Software developers have version control for their source code, but what about people who write sales brochures? I work in a large multinational corporation, the marketing department of which generates a large volume of outward-facing literature - brochures, applications, etc. These are written in-house, artworked by an agency into pdf, and then reviewed/amended/signed-off prior to being printed and distributed; changes to any given item are frequent and reasonably regular (usually 6 monthly), and may need to be amended and reviewed by a number of people (usually 4-6).

Unfortunately, the relevant department has no concept of the re-use of identical elements across documents (e.g. common paragraphs, tables, etc.) - every document is completely independent of the others, no matter how much copy text is duplicated; they manage version control completely manually; they are inconsistent in handling updates to one document, and frequently do not apply them across other similar documents; and lastly, they operate in a non-collaborative manner regarding review and sign-off - so any changes suggested by one person aren't seen by the others until all of the changes have been re-applied to the document, incurring extra artworking costs and time delays.

I'm absolutely certain that there is some software out there somewhere that - in effect - does source-code version control for printed literature, and will help to resolve all of the issues that we have... but I have no idea what I'm looking for! Every search I do just returns source code versioning.

Does anyone out there work for a publishing house, or a document production agency, or something, who use software such as this to control all of these aspects of printed literature lifecycle? Something that gives collaborative review of documents; something that links "paragraphs" between documents (so one change updates multiple documents, or at least identifies them for you); something that helps to control which version of a document was available at any particular time, irrespective of the subsequent changes...
I'm coming at this from a business analysis background (it's not my job any more, it's just a habit I can't shake!), and it really frustrates me that a core part of such a large business is totally dependent upon inefficient and inaccurate manual processes... but is my only solution to roll up my sleeves and learn to code something suitable?

Configured, Boiled Down Numbers Please

rokusan — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:36:20 -0800

A good, modern, local website traffic stats solution? I used to know this stuff, but it's been many years and technology changes, yadda yadda, and this has some special odd requirements... so I prefer some hive mind opinions...

I have a colleague looking for a good solution to traffic stats reporting. He is responsible for dozens of websites, with new ones being added/removed every couple of weeks -- promotions and projects from various departments. He has access to combined/extended Apache logs (regular + referrer) already, but since he controls the websites, he is also open to a javascript-triggered thingie on each page, and a custom server that logs things itself. Either is fine as long as it churns out the results.

For results, he'd need an assortment of the usual hits/views/referrers stuff (visitors from Chile, most popular pages this week, hits on this certain link), but boiled down nicely like so:

1) takes raw logs and turns them into something human-readable.
2) scheduled (weekly or monthly) reports automatically saved as fixed files (auditable, this not recreated each time it's run).
3) reports showing just the info he wants* e-mailed to him as attachments (PDF, ideally, but text files would work) so he can present to management.
4) the ability to request custom reports (the period from Sept 1 to Sept 14, users from China only) on demand, presumably from some kind of web interface -- an on-the-fly config run one-off.
5) the ability to combine or separate data from diff sites/logs by configuration. (that is: these two sites are the same, but these four are all to be tracked separately)

* I don't have a list, but he says it will be one or two pages and NOT change over time. A template of certain reports?

He is considering hiring a human being part-time to do this with some offline program as a secretarial task every week... but that struck me as crazy since it's automatable, right? Right? Hm.

It can't be Google Analytics, sadly for me (I know how to use that) and for privacy/security reasons he'd prefer something running on his own Un*x server rather than a web service.... whether it's the same server as the websites or another doesn't matter, as long as he can control access and keep the data private.

In the old days, I would say this all called for urchin or awstats, I think... plus some magic I don't know about to turn the results into pretty reports and mail them from a big old cron job.

From my perspective (helping find/source/make/install this), I'd be fine with something very complicated that I can tweak the configuration of to produce just what he's asking for -- and no more.

Or if something does all the processing, will run reports on a schedule and produce some kind of manageable (parsable?) output like plain flat tables, I can probably manage turning that into pretty documents and mailing them out with additional scripty code that I can stumble through.

Open source and hackable preferred, because of the configurability and tweakiness required... or guidance to existing things that can be cobbled together. If someone has built/integrated one of these before, or something similar, please mefi-mail me and maybe it's easy work, too. I may have overcommitted myself in trying to help.

Receive Fax's as PDF

tirebouchon — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:49:35 -0800

I am looking for fax software that can receive faxes as a PDF file or other non proprietary file. Mac OS X or Windows would work. Anyone have any recommendations?

Best Windows TIFF combiner?

yesno — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:46:52 -0800

What is the best Windows TIFF combiner? I was asked for advice on combining thousands of TIFFS (scans of documents in a legal discovery) into one, manageable file. I rarely use Windows, and the world of Windows software is vast and scary compared to my usual universe.

I don't know if TIFFs can be multi-page, but it probably seems like the resulting file would be overly large. Therefore, I'm looking for a program that can combine the TIFFs into PDFs in three different ways: One, into a non-OCR'd, image only PDF that is legible, but where the images aren't unreasonably large; Two, into an OCR'd image, where the text is "behind" the original image but you just see the original image in order to minimize the effect of any errors; and Three, into a purely OCR'd text document.

Where is the software to convert a PDF

ajbattrick — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 03:58:45 -0800

I need some software that will take a PDF file (of a magazine) and produce an online version of it that does not require a PDF reader to view. I need to replicate the functionality of this

Ideally the answer will be an open source PHP/MySQL application

How to automatically extract graphical content from PDFs?

elbaso — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:33:11 -0800

Are there any software packages or toolkits (preferably open source) available that allow me to automatically extract graphical content (such as pictures, diagrams, graphs, etc.) from batches of PDFs? I'm working on a Grad school project where I would like to automatically extract any graphical content from batches of PDFs.
By graphical content, I mean pictures, graphs, diagrams... anything that's visual and not part of the full text.

I would also like to be able to automatically extract any captions that a picture would have, and perhaps the surrounding text... say half a page before and after the occurrence of the picture.

I'm trying to build a set of pictures from a large batch PDFs, and classify/tag them based on the content of the captions or nearby text.

Thanks for any help!

How to automate searchable PDF creation with automatic document feeder, PaperPort and OmniPage?

ideaguy — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 02:38:17 -0800

How can I automate PDF creation with my automatic document feeder, ScanSoft PaperPort and OmniPage? I need to have PDFs that look like the original document and are searchable (not image only). I was fed up with scanning single pages with my CanoScan scanner, so I bought a Brother MFC-5440CN since it offers an automatic document feeder (35 pages).

I can scan pages to PDF alright, but those PDFs are not searchable (you can't search for text within them). My CanoScan scanner automatically created searchable PDFs, but with this Brother MFC I seem to be in need to fumble together the solution myself...

I even updated the bundled PaperPort and OmniPage to the latest versions, PaperPort 11 and OmniPage 15 - but still can't get it to work.

I'd be very happy to get a detailed "how to" for what I'd need to do to get this working, search engines couldn't help me.

Help me catalogue 1000s of documents please.

empedia — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 04:22:55 -0800

I am responsible for locating from the internet and cataloguing several thousand scientific articles in PDF format in order to build a documentation library. I am looking for the best way of cataloguing and publishing these articles for a small workgroup to be able to search and find articles by specific criteria. Everyone will be running Windows XP in a networked environment so any solution will have to run under windows and not linux etc. this also rules out Sharepoint as that will only work under Windows 2003 Server (thanks Microsoft!).

I want to be able to catalogue and search these PDF's by the following criteria. There is no need for free text search on the whole article however.

1. Title
2. Abstract - ideally free text search but this is not essential
3. Authors - it must be possible to catalogue each article by multiple authors and be able to search on individual authors separately. This is an essential requirement.
4. Journal
5. Multiple keywords - it must be possible to search on each keyword separately.
6. Publication date

Ideally a user could search on any combination of fields for each document and specify multiple authors etc.

The PDF files will be located on a server which everyone will have access to - ideally the files should be exposed via HTTP but fileshares etc. would be fine as well.

My budget is pretty limited - ideally something free and open source would be great but if I found the perfect solution I think I could persuade my boss to pay for something.

I also don't have the time or resources to write something myself although I am an experienced programmer so if there is a solution which will work with a little customisation that'd be OK as well.

I look forward to your replies/comments.

Quark and PDFs

fijiwriter — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 07:18:32 -0800

Does Quark play well with exporting PDFs? I have a client who has multi-page printed documents/applications. They were designed by a printing company, which has them in Quark. (I don't know the version of Quark.)

My idea is that printer can export the files into PDFs that I can use on a website project, saving us from re-typing all those pages or scanning by hand.

However, would those PDFs allow me to select text for copy/paste purposes?

And if possible, is this a quick exporting task for the printer - just a few button clicks?

How to make it mobile?

geekyguy — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 04:15:17 -0800

PDFfilter: How easiest to format/generate the same information to be sent to mobile phones and PDA's. Every day a document is generated using InDesign and Adobe Acrobat 6, (Windows XP), and emailed to many people.

The next natural step to open this up to more users is to port the same information to their mobile devices. Chinese characters involved.

Is there a better way to read .pdf's?

PercussivePaul — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 17:45:33 -0800

What software do you use to read academic papers online? I'm an Engineering student and I often find myself reading academic papers online in .pdf form. They tend to be very information-dense, with small type and small figures, and are often difficult to understand until I've gone through them two or three times. I find I always prefer printing them out, since that way I can easily flip between pages to look at an earlier figure, for example, or to re-read a section. But printing is not always possible or convenient.

I wonder if there is any software out there specifically designed to make this easier - i.e. quickly flipping between pages, showing two pages at once side by side. I can't quite identify what specifically frustrates me about reading .pdf's on my computer and I don't know what I would do to fix it; what I'm hoping is that someone out there has thought about it.

PS I'm on a mac.

What is a good business card making program, that will let me convert the cards to pdf format?

Dean Keaton — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 22:04:15 -0800

What is a good business card making program, that will let me convert the cards to pdf format? My laser printer, though nice isn't enough to make good business cards. I also want to use color. What are my options? Thanks, by the way.

Printing document pages 2-up on both sides of a piece of paper

weston — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 12:06:18 -0800

Printing a "booklet" from PDF on the cheap: I'm looking for software that will help me do 2-up on both sides of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, but I'm open to any suggestions. So, suppose I were buying a book that came as a PDF (say, this). I'd to want to print out and perhaps bind some of it. Even a mere $.06 per side of 8x11.5(the apparent going rate at the copy shop) gets expensive fast. I'd like to be able to to get to half that cost. 2-up on both sides of a sheet is the obvious solution. And in general, I'd like to be able to print documents as "booklets"

However, how to do this in a way that will be easily (let alone practically) bindable is not immediately clear to me. Ideally, I'd like some software to do the work of figuring out print order in such a way that I could stack/fold the sheets and get a booklet, like so:

Or I guess I could take something which would print pages in any other arrangement such that I could cut down the middle, and have them circular bound or throw them in a binder or something. Maybe like this:

There used to exist something like this for the Mac -- Print Chef -- but the creator's website looks like it hasn't been updated in two years and is fairly broken.

I own a Mac, and would therefore prefer a Mac-based solution, but I have access to PCs at work, and would gofor a free or very cheap PC-based solution.

I'm also open to other ideas. Thanks!

I want to be able to take notes on PDFs.

librarina — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 17:19:43 -0800

I am looking for a cheap Mac (Tiger) program that will let me write on PDFs. Most of my reading for school is PDFs, and there's no way I'm going to print out hundreds of pages a term. I need something that will let me take notes in the margins of PDFs, preferably via text boxes or something rather than converting the whole thing to text and then letting me alter the original text. I especially like PDFPenPro, of which I got a demo, because the contents of the text boxes overlaid on the page are indexed also, so a search returns both the word in the text of the document and in my notes. That is very nice but not actually required. More important is that it not cost more than about $20. Free is, as always, better.

Looking for Cross-Platform Software to Draw Upon or Merge PDFs

holloway — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:30:46 -0800

Hi, I'm looking for some PDF software that lets you draw ontop of an existing PDF (like lines, text), and some other software that lets you merge multiple PDF files (there was a similar question a few days ago but that was for OSX). If I get to be choosy, I'd prefer cross platform libraries. Thanks! For the first one Ghostscript is the obvious choice, but I'd prefer not to write C and I can't find any better wrapper libraries.

Electronically filling in a PDF document not set up for input?

Sinner — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 01:17:17 -0800

PDFFilter - I have a .pdf upon which I need to enter information (think of it like an application with blanks for application-y stuff like name and address). The .pdf is not a form, however. Currently, the only option seems to be printing the document and then using either a pen or a typewriter to fill in the blanks. There simply must be a way to get this information onto the .pdf electronically instead ... mustn't there? Your help is much appreciated.

Photoshop, photo print, Print Photoshop, Print!

dual_action — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 14:03:04 -0800

Can someone please help me print multiple documents in Photoshop 7? I have two documents, both created in Photoshop. Let's say they are the front and back of a brochure. How can I print these using the duplex option on my printer without getting up and turning over the paper in the tray? (I'm not lazy, but I will probably be printing to a printer in another location) In Freehand you can add a page to a document, c&p the other file, tick the duplex option, and away you go. I can't seem to find a way to do this, and Google is being stubborn. Picture Package or Contact Sheet II don't seem to be what I'm looking for - can I somehow merge the two? Photoshop 7 on OS 10.2.8. Thanks!

How can I convert a scanned pdf to searchable text?

nomis — Thu, 06 May 2004 00:23:57 -0800

I need to convert a scanned pdf to searchable text, without printing it out and scanning it back in using OCR. Also, I'd like a cheap or free solution since I'm not likely to use it ~~often~~ ever again.