Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 17:22:56 -0600 (MDT) From: Dale Scott <dalescott@shaw.ca> To: Jordan <freebsd@jdev.sent.com> Cc: freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> Subject: Re: PDF Documents Manipulation Software options Message-ID: <1584212720.148023480.1587597776062.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> In-Reply-To: <b9eab5c4-0619-4d9d-ba05-7ac3ec24bfaa@www.fastmail.com> References: <09e273ff-4d9d-47eb-a6e1-d91f18c8a0ef@www.fastmail.com> <20200423002530.87cf0d91.freebsd@edvax.de> <b9eab5c4-0619-4d9d-ba05-7ac3ec24bfaa@www.fastmail.com>
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Have you looked at PDFtk? It's in the ports collection and claims to be a Java equivalent of PDFtk. IIUC, PDFtk is a product from PDFLabs (https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/), who also provide a CLI tool ("PDFtk Server") with source which you may be able to compile on FreeBSD. Fwiw, my usual desktop is Windows and I use "PDFTK-Builder" (a Windows GUI app) to do what you want "manually" (extract pages from various PDFs and merge to create a new PDF), which seems to be a Windows GUI with PDFtk Server underneath. However, I recall needing to use the CLI PDFtk Server directly once because PDFTK-Builder didn't expose a command-line switch I needed. Good luck! Write back and tell us what you ended up doing. Cheers, Dale --- Dale Scott Engineering and NPI Leader Web: www.dalescott.net ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jordan" <freebsd@jdev.sent.com> > To: "freebsd-questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> > Cc: "Polytropon" <freebsd@edvax.de> > Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 4:50:03 PM > Subject: Re: PDF Documents Manipulation Software options > Hi Polytropon, > > Thank you for the response. > > I agree, manually manipulating PDFs with a GUI is not very efficient, however, > the work I do cannot be automated (atleast I haven't found a way). > > On a PDF I may have to extract out pages 3, 5 and 14 into a new 3 page PDF > because I only need the data from pages 3, 5 and 14. The very next PDF file I > work on I may need to extract out 20 pages, all in a row, from pages 20 to 40. > The next PDF file I may need the first and last page. There is absolutely no > common denominator from these three PDF's and the only thing common is that I > need to extract pages. > > In other words, I cannot write a script or use CLI to know ahead of time what > needs to be done, because it takes my eyes to visually see the pages and to > know what pages I need extracted. I cannot use grep or any text searching > function on these PDFs because on one PDF I may need certain pages that contain > words that have absolutely nothing to do with the pages I need on the next PDF > I work on. So, very unfortunately, this is a very manual job and requires > human beings (again, from my knowledge of CLI, scripting, etc). > > Using CLI would require me to visually look with my eyes a PDF file in a GUI > situation and then turn around, open a console, type in a command to extract > out a list of specific pages I need to then have to turn around and move that > newly created PDF file to a difference location that may be nested 30 folders > deep (and won't be consistent location as the next PDF I work within). It is > easier to visually click, hold CTRL to continue highlighting pages and then > right click, extract (which creates a new PDF) and then drag and drop the new > PDF pages into a GUI file manager (such as Thunar) to create the new PDF. > > I don't see how CLI tools will work with the above example workflows although I > am all ears to hearing others opinions. I know "professional" PDF software > such as Adobe Acrobat Pro works but it is only compatible with Windows (and > maybe GNU/Linux). I found another proprietary PDF Professional software but it > is only available for Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux. I am on a quest to find > something for FreeBSD as I believe it to be superior OS than the > aforementioned. > > -- > Jordan > > On Wed, Apr 22, 2020, at 3:25 PM, Polytropon wrote: >> On Wed, 22 Apr 2020 15:14:59 -0700, Jordan wrote: >> > I need PDF software that can add pages, remove pages, extract pages >> > and redact. >> >> With "redact", you're refering to PDF annotations? >> >> >> >> > All of the PDF ports I have found are simply viewers and don't allow >> > manipulations of the PDF in a single packaged GUI application. I work >> > with hundreds of PDFs each day so I cannot work within a CLI to >> > manipulate the pages. >> >> I'd say the exact opposite is the case: If you're going to deal with >> a lot of files, using CLI tools to automate those tasks usually is >> the more convenient way - instead of doing everything manually in >> linear time. :-) But this of course depends on many parameters, such >> as if the kind of manipulation always is "one of a kind" or can be >> somehow standardized... >> >> >> >> > I do a lot of extracting of pages into a new PDF by dragging and >> > dropping pages from PDF software to a GUI file manager such as >> > Thunar. >> >> This can easily be done with the GUI file manager of your choice >> plus pdftk. Page preview support is present already in tools like >> Thunar. >> >> >> >> > Any suggestions that you use or have heard that works with FreeBSD? >> >> Tools like LibreOffice (and surely also OpenOffice) can directly >> open and manipulate PDF files. Gimp also has support for this >> format. For CLI operations, pdftk and ImageMagick are versatile >> tools that can be combined with GUI tools as well as used for >> batch operations. >> >> Is this a starting point for you? >> >> >> >> -- >> Polytropon >> Magdeburg, Germany >> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 >> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... >> > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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