PDF 
| |
|---|---|
| Summary | |
| Description: | Through PDF Handler, we can display thumbnails of PDF files uploaded into the wiki |
| More | |
| Notes: | relies on gs convert and pdfinfo
|
| Example: | The example on the right is used here and on the page Cloning. |
More than ever, the Adobe "Portable Document Format" or PDF is a critical format for communication. One feature of the format is that it bridges the world of the web with the world of print very well.
Saving PDF Forms
Annoyingly, Adobe Software does not allow you to save the contents of PDF forms using Adobe Acrobat Reader. The software tells you to print the form if you wish to have a copy. The solution is to avoid Adobe Reader (I left out the 'acrobat' since it's not even flexible -- hardly an acrobat). Okular or Evince will allow you to save the contents of that application/healthcare/insurance/DMV form that you filled out so that you have an electronic record rather than a paper record.
PDF Tools
Surprisingly, I could not easily create a new PDF that was a combination of two other pdf documents. That's when I found the "PDF Toolkit" http://www.pdfhacks.com/pdftk/
OpenOffice does output pdf, and so does KPrinter, but the PDF Toolkit offers many more features that really should be present in a GUI program like Okular (formerly Kpdf) -- which is a viewer rather than an authoring application. At least you can install the "Service Menus" into Konqueror to get some easy right-click integration. It would be interesting to use DCOP to create a simple merge GUI.
PHP developers should look at the libraries provided there for manipulating PDF forms.
See Also
- Format conversion
- see the Collections page for creating books which can be printed as PDF
- The Cloning article shows an example of how the PDF Handler extension allows the wiki to generate thumbnails for pdf files as if they were regular images.