Adobe Acrobat - Writer? Help

[Collater]

I am in the process of prerparing a very large aviation-related index and have started using Microsoft Word Tables, but eventually it will get too big to handle. I had hoped to produce it on a CD-ROM for use with Adobe Acrobat Reader, but I cannot find anywhere how to prepare material for use by Acrobat. Presumably there is some form of Writer programme, but despite mailing Adobe I have had no response.

Stupid question, probably, but what programme(s) is/are used to produce material in a format readable by Acrobat Reader?

Any help very much appreciated.

[stagger]

You need something simply called Adobe Acrobat rather than Adobe Acrobat Reader which is what most people have.

The full version of Acrobat isn't cheap - about £250 I think.

Alternatives are...

1) Adobe used to have a trial PDF conversion utility on their website. You uploaded a file and they converted it for you. There were size limits though and I can't seem to find the site anymore.

2) Find someone who has the program to convert a document for you - if you can attach the file to an email (i.e. it's not huge) then I don't mind converting it for you.

[stagger]

Just checked, it is £240...

http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/acrobat/main.html

[fobotcso]

Somewhere I have a CD with an image processing application such as PhotoDelux. When this App was installed and setup there appeared in the list of printers the Acrobat Writer option.

In other words, a document could be printed to a PDF file.

I never used it so don't know what limitations there were, but if you care to e-mail me with a proper e-mail address and you don't mind receiving large files as e-mail attachments, I'll see what I can do about finding it and sending it to you.

No problem with copyright or licence as I got the software with a printer that I no longer use and do not use the Program myself.

[PaperTiger]

Have a look at pdffactory which was mentioned in a thread here a couple of weeks back. I've never used it, but it's a lot cheaper than the Acrobat writer. Watermarked trial version available.

http://www.fineprint.com/software/pdffactory/standard/index.html

[BOAC]

While we are on Acrobat - does anyone know how to import PDF data into, say, Excel? Is it possible to convert the format?

[stagger]

Whether or not you can extract text from a PDF document depends on how it was created.

For a normal PDF document in which fonts are embedded or standard fonts are used you can use the Text Select Tool in Adobe Acrobat Reader to copy chunks of text. You will invariably lose the formating information though. So if you're trying to copy a table you'll end up with the cell contents in lines with spaces as a separators. Could possibly use the Text > Table function in Word to get things back in order.

However, often when a document have been scanned and the image has been used to create the PDF document without the use of OCR (character recognition) software, you'll find that you actually have an image of the text rather than the text itself. So Text Select won't be possible. You could perhaps use the Graphics Select Tool to copy an image of the table then use OCR software to try and extract the text from the image file.

[BOAC]

Hello again, Stagger - thanks for the info. I suspect I have a 'scanned' pdf.

[SmilingAssassin]

To convert from Adobe back to some other format you can use 'OmniPage Pro 11' - it's pretty good at what it does (though not perfect), and costs about £90.

Of course if you're on a tight budget, there's always Morpheus (http://www.morpheus-os.com/) ! ;)

[tomahawk1673]

There is a free alternative - Latex. It is a front end to Tex, initially created for Linux. However, there is a port for Windows, called MikTex. Do a search on the internet for it, I can't remember the URL off hand. It's a little tricky to use to begin with, it's a little like html. And it can compile to pdf format too. I use it at university - most technical documents are produced with it apparently, especiallly mathematical and engineering docs.

If you need any help, just ask and I'll give you my email addy :)

[BOAC]

Tomahawk - thanks - MikTEx is here (http://www.miktex.org/) and Latex is here (http://www.latex-project.org/)

I'll need to take a deep breath and have a slow look at that!

[Mac the Knife]

I use PDFWriter that came as a freebie with something.
Not very good but good enough.

Try http://www.pdf995.com/
Apparently good - register to get rid of splashscreen
or goto
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
for GhostScript and GSView - free GNU for Windows
Supposed to be excellent

Good luck from MTK

[bblank]

Some comments on LaTeX. To begin, one small correction to tomahawk's post - LaTex predates Linux. It has been around since 1985 whereas Linux was conceived in 1991 and dates from 1994. (TeX itself goes back to the '70s.)

LaTeX is not exactly for casual use. It is an entire typesetting language. It is overkill for anybody whose primary business is not writing technical documents that require specialized typography. LaTeX source has the important advantage of being plain text but it is quite unpleasant to read. Its purpose is to produce camera-ready hard-copy, not to produce a file that is easily read on a monitor. LaTeX does this through the creation of device-independent binary DVI files. DVI readers are available but not nearly as widespread as PDF readers.

Another drawback of LaTeX is that it is still evolving. Changes between versions are not great but they are enough to prevent some old documents from compiling. (Yes, LaTeX documents must be compiled and "debugged" like a computer program.) LaTeX3 seems to be underway and I still have papers written with early versions of LaTeX that don't even compile under the current LaTex2e.

Having thrown away hundreds of pounds of IBM punch cards, having seen a subsequent decade of work migrated to tape that is readable only by a decommissioned IBM 370 mainframe, having hundreds of binary files stored on 5.25 floppies and intelligible only to primordial word processors that became extinct ages ago, I now would not consider embarking on a major project unless the whole thing was done in plain text (and archived on as many different media as I could afford). Proprietary file formats should be adopted with caution.

I'm not sure what Collater has in mind but I suspect that I would consider HTML (easier than LaTeX) or possibly an established database language.

BTW, I use GhostScript and GSView for ps files. They generally work well but some documents do give problems for reasons not known to me.

[tomahawk1673]

Yes, Latex is a little difficult to read. However, if you do decide to use it, use a colour coded text editor to write the source.

I use EmEditor (have a look at www.download.com for it), and find it to be excellent.

Miktex comes with a PDF convertor, which will convert the source (the .tex file) to a PDF file. The command is "pdflatex filename". It's true: DVI files don't look nice on a monitor and are not as widely used as PDF, as the previous post mentions. This convertor obviously avoids the problem!!

It is tricky to use to begin with, but I would not use Word (and the like) for a large scale project personally. Download it, fiddle about with it, if you like it use it, if you don't, don't!!!

HTML is a viable alternative, extremely portable, but doesn't look as professional as TEX.

Just a few ideas... :)