Re: Type on top of a PDF? -- or anything else?

From: r coyne (duckingsnofair@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 18:37:12 EST

  • Next message: David Bear: "Re: Type on top of a PDF?"

    Does abi have the necessary hooks to be able to *scan*
    documents into it? And/or can abi use an arbitrary
    image file, perhaps one scanned in or the rasterized
    pdf, as the background/"paper" on which it does its
    thing of putting the "ink"? That way one would have
    the combination of word-processor-style features with
    other parts of the document those word-processing ways
    are not allowed to alter.

    --- abiword@interlinx.bc.ca wrote:
    > On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 02:50:10PM -0800, Dom
    > Lachowicz wrote:
    > >
    > > Many have identified this need. It's a difficult
    > and
    > > problematic problem space, and one that Adobe is
    > very
    > > fierce about protecting, traditionally.
    >
    > Yeah, well. Bread and butter and all that stuff.
    >
    > > Well, considering my last job was
    > www.appligent.com
    > > and I'm currently doing contract work for
    > > www.pdfsages.com, I think I know a bit about the
    > > topic.
    >
    > My appologies. I did not mean to sound at all
    > authoritative about
    > this subject as I am anything but. I guess I was
    > just throwing out
    > ideas given the use of tools for PDF rendering.
    >
    > > Rasterizing the PDF to a PNG, and then importing
    > the
    > > PNG is *trivial*.
    >
    > :-)
    >
    > > Getting meaningful structured layout
    > > out of a PDF's contents is much much harder (i.e.
    > > fonts, text, images, etc...).
    >
    > OK. So, I'd be happy to rasterize it then. The
    > rasterization does
    > not even have to look terribly good. I am happy to
    > print in two
    > passes. One to print the PDF, from say acrobat, and
    > the second to
    > just "fill in the blanks" (i.e. from abiword).
    > Abiword just has to
    > show me some decent semblance of the document so
    > that I know where to
    > place my text.
    >
    > > Sending PNGs to your
    > > printer sucks. PNGs of text is also a sub-optimal
    > > model for a word-processor to follow.
    >
    > Right, but even if the wordprocessor were to print
    > the PDF in raster
    > format (assuming it was rasterized at a decent
    > enough resolution), the
    > text that the wordprocessor adds would not have to
    > be rasterized, no?
    >
    > > A word-processor
    > > is a much different beast than a "typewriter with
    > a
    > > monitor" model you've used.
    >
    > It is, indeed. But does it have to be? It places
    > text on paper. I
    > don't mean to simplify what a word processor does,
    > just one possible
    > simple function of it.
    >
    > b.
    >
    > --
    > Brian J. Murrell
    >

    > ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature

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