Can any open-source program read this format?
Bob T.

Bob Tennent wrote:
Can any open-source program read this format?
Bob T.
A quick google search doesn't look hopeful. An alternative is to Wine or
Crossover if you really want to use MS Publisher.

Fri, 2 Sep 2005 13:02:19 +0200, Michael Heiming wrote:
In comp.os.linux.misc Bob Tennent <BobT@cs.queensu.ca>:
>Can any open-source program read this format?
>
Check if the doze app can export to anything useful,
.eps/.ps/.pdf and use http://www.scribus.org.uk/ to import and
work with it.

I was sent a *huge* pdf to link to from a web site. The author isn't
capable of cutting it down to size so I asked for the "original" file.
Turned out to be in Publisher format and I don't have Publisher (or
Windows for that matter). I've converted the pdf to jpg and cut the
size to a tenth but readability of the text has suffered.

Don't expect general availability of SS software to import
evil/undocumented proprietary M$ crap formats that change every
other day and are often not even compatible with different
version of the same M$ program. That's how the make tons of cash
since decades.

I don't expect it. But if it were there, I'd use it. That's what I was
asking about.

Your and many other problems we read here every other day until
our ears hurt, are just due to using doze, but alas it doesn't
help, people won't get a clue.;(

You're preaching to the converted.

Bob T.

Bob Tennent wrote:
Fri, 2 Sep 2005 13:02:19 +0200, Michael Heiming wrote:
In comp.os.linux.misc Bob Tennent <BobT@cs.queensu.ca>:
>Can any open-source program read this format?
>
Check if the doze app can export to anything useful,
.eps/.ps/.pdf and use http://www.scribus.org.uk/ to import and
work with it.

I was sent a *huge* pdf to link to from a web site. The author isn't
capable of cutting it down to size so I asked for the "original" file.
Turned out to be in Publisher format and I don't have Publisher (or
Windows for that matter). I've converted the pdf to jpg and cut the
size to a tenth but readability of the text has suffered.

So why is the original so huge? Does it contain uncompressed bitmaps
perhaps? Maybe there's something else that's suboptimal in the file. I
don't know of any way to directly optimize a PDF, but ps2ps does a
fairly good job of optimizing PostScript. So you could try:

pdf2ps hugefile.pdf hugefile.ps
ps2ps hugefile.ps newfile.ps
pdf2ps newfile.ps newfile.pdf

The above procedure took an 8.2 MB PDF which contained uncompressed
bitmaps, converted that to 10.2 MB of PostScript, and then converted the
PostScript to a mere 0.4 MB of PDF with the content compressed.

Note that the compression mentioned is within the PDF file itself and is
part of the PDF specification. It's not like a pdf.gz or something that
PDF viewers can't handle directly. It'll open in acroread, xpdf, etc.
just fine. It's also lossless compression, unlike JPEG, so readability
of the text shouldn't be affected.

course this doesn't help if the original PDF was huge in some other
way. But it's worth a try.

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 11:40:23 -0400, John-Paul Stewart wrote:

>I was sent a *huge* pdf to link to from a web site. The author isn't
>capable of cutting it down to size so I asked for the "original" file.
>Turned out to be in Publisher format and I don't have Publisher (or
>Windows for that matter). I've converted the pdf to jpg and cut the
>size to a tenth but readability of the text has suffered.
>
So why is the original so huge? Does it contain uncompressed bitmaps
perhaps? Maybe there's something else that's suboptimal in the file.

There are digital-camera images (with high resolutions I would say) and
non-standard embedded TrueType fonts.

I don't know of any way to directly optimize a PDF, but ps2ps does a
fairly good job of optimizing PostScript. So you could try:

pdf2ps hugefile.pdf hugefile.ps
ps2ps hugefile.ps newfile.ps
pdf2ps newfile.ps newfile.pdf

Doesn't work for me, but thanks for the suggestion. The fonts would
add some unnecessary KB but I would guess the real problem is with the
images.

Bob T.

Sat, 3 Sep 2005 08:29:59 +0200, Michael Heiming wrote:

What about using scribus, (or even kword (afaik)) to edit ps/pdf as
I had outlined in this thread?

After using pdftops, scribus imports the ps and displays the text
without the images; kword attempts to import the pdf and displays
the images but garbage instead of text. If only I could combine :+)

Thanks for the suggestions. The best solution I have so far is to
use convert (ImageMagick) to produce a jpg:

Bob T.

Sat, 3 Sep 2005 19:28:38 +0200, Michael Heiming wrote:

>After using pdftops, scribus imports the ps and displays the text
>without the images; kword attempts to import the pdf and displays
>the images but garbage instead of text. If only I could combine :+)
>
Sounds bad.;( Anyway, did you try out the latest + greatest
version of both,

Yes, but not CVS.

What about "compress" from Multivalent Document Tools?
()

The compress tool saves 1% using the -noembed option (fonts) and 1%
using the -compact option (which produces a non-standard format).
The documentation suggests there's an option to "apply lossy image
compression" but I don't see it.

Bob T.

Sat, 3 Sep 2005 23:27:46 +0200, Michael Heiming wrote:

>What about "compress" from Multivalent Document Tools?
>()
>
>The compress tool saves 1% using the -noembed option (fonts) and 1%
>using the -compact option (which produces a non-standard format).
>The documentation suggests there's an option to "apply lossy image
>compression" but I don't see it.
>
"-jpeg" option looks promising.

It isn't. It will convert "raw image samples" to JPEG, but doesn't
change the resolution/compression if the images are already in JPEG.

Bob T.