I have 20-odd PDF's that I must read. They have a terrible
handwritten-type font embedded in them and I cannot read them! The
PDFs are text, not images, as I've been able to copy the text and
paste to OpenOffice successfully. However, the documents are Materials
Engineering documents with charts and diagrams, so simply copying and
pasting the whole thing is unacceptable. Is there a PDF reader that
lets one override the embedded fonts?
I cannot ask for the documents to be recreated in an accessible
manner, as I already tried that route.
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
06-06-2008, 01:26 PM
Johannes Wiedersich
PDF reader that overrides fonts
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On 2008-06-06 14:24, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I have 20-odd PDF's that I must read. They have a terrible
> handwritten-type font embedded in them and I cannot read them! The
> PDFs are text, not images, as I've been able to copy the text and
> paste to OpenOffice successfully. However, the documents are Materials
> Engineering documents with charts and diagrams, so simply copying and
> pasting the whole thing is unacceptable. Is there a PDF reader that
> lets one override the embedded fonts?
If it's just that they look unreadable on screen, you could try a
different pdf reader. I've had the experience that some strange
bitmapped fonts look better on acroread (from [1]) than on kpdf, xpdf.
I don't know how to replace the fonts, but maybe you could have a look at:
pstoedit - a tool converting PostScript and PDF files into various
vector graphic formats
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06-06-2008, 01:53 PM
"Dotan Cohen"
PDF reader that overrides fonts
2008/6/6 Johannes Wiedersich <johannes@physik.blm.tu-muenchen.de>:
> If it's just that they look unreadable on screen, you could try a
> different pdf reader. I've had the experience that some strange
> bitmapped fonts look better on acroread (from [1]) than on kpdf, xpdf.
>
No, the problem is that the idiot who created the documents is of the
over-engineering too-much-detail type. She embedded a font that looks
like her handwriting. The font itself displays fine. I simply cannot
distinguish the letters.
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
06-06-2008, 02:52 PM
"Mumia W.."
PDF reader that overrides fonts
On 06/06/2008 08:53 AM, Dotan Cohen wrote:
2008/6/6 Johannes Wiedersich <johannes@physik.blm.tu-muenchen.de>:
If it's just that they look unreadable on screen, you could try a
different pdf reader. I've had the experience that some strange
bitmapped fonts look better on acroread (from [1]) than on kpdf, xpdf.
No, the problem is that the idiot who created the documents is of the
over-engineering too-much-detail type. She embedded a font that looks
like her handwriting. The font itself displays fine. I simply cannot
distinguish the letters.
Dotan Cohen
Unless you're a Postscript programmer, this is not for the faint of
heart, but it is possible to replace one PDF (or Poscript) font with
another.
Read the debian-user thread that starts here:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2007/09/msg00098.html
The options seem to be these:
1: Use Evince and create an Evince-hints file that redirects the
handwriting font to another one.
2: Use xpdf and create a custom xpdf-includes file. (If you can grok
"man xpdfrc," you're smarter than I am).
3: Use Ghostscript and set up a FONTPATH and create a font-name alias.
Then tell Ghostscript to create a new PDF file "-sDEVICE=pdfwrite."
Probably all of these methods will require that you remove the embedded
handwriting font from the Postscript file, and that'll be tricky. I'm
not a Postscript programmer, but I do know that it should be possible to
replace the font.
If the file is not covered by any NDA or privacy restriction, you could
send it to me, and I could try remove the offending font.
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06-06-2008, 03:06 PM
Florian Kulzer
PDF reader that overrides fonts
On Fri, Jun 06, 2008 at 15:26:22 +0200, Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
> On 2008-06-06 14:24, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > I have 20-odd PDF's that I must read. They have a terrible
> > handwritten-type font embedded in them and I cannot read them! The
> > PDFs are text, not images, as I've been able to copy the text and
> > paste to OpenOffice successfully. However, the documents are Materials
> > Engineering documents with charts and diagrams, so simply copying and
> > pasting the whole thing is unacceptable. Is there a PDF reader that
> > lets one override the embedded fonts?
>
> If it's just that they look unreadable on screen, you could try a
> different pdf reader. I've had the experience that some strange
> bitmapped fonts look better on acroread (from [1]) than on kpdf, xpdf.
>
> I don't know how to replace the fonts, but maybe you could have a look at:
>
> pstoedit - a tool converting PostScript and PDF files into various
> vector graphic formats
>
> skencil, inkscape are programs to edit svg.
>
> (Have not tried it myself)
I think inkscape is by far the best tool for this job, provided that you
use version 0.46 (available in Lenny and Sid). It can read PDFs directly
and convert their content to fully-editable text blocks, vector graphics
or embedded bitmaps (depending on how the individual elements were
embedded in the original PDF). It will probably replace the embedded
non-standard font with a standard one automatically. You should then be
able to change font size, positioning of the text blocks, etc. as if you
had created this document yourself with inkscape. If you find that the
spacing of the letters is strange then you might have to make use of
"Text > Remove Manual Kerns".
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06-06-2008, 03:13 PM
"Dotan Cohen"
PDF reader that overrides fonts
2008/6/6 Mumia W.. <paduille.4061.mumia.w+nospam@earthlink.net>:
> Unless you're a Postscript programmer, this is not for the faint of heart,
> but it is possible to replace one PDF (or Poscript) font with another.
I'm not a postscript programmer... but I'm not faint of heart either...
> Read the debian-user thread that starts here:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2007/09/msg00098.html
>
> The options seem to be these:
> 1: Use Evince and create an Evince-hints file that redirects the handwriting
> font to another one.
> 2: Use xpdf and create a custom xpdf-includes file. (If you can grok "man
> xpdfrc," you're smarter than I am).
> 3: Use Ghostscript and set up a FONTPATH and create a font-name alias. Then
> tell Ghostscript to create a new PDF file "-sDEVICE=pdfwrite."
Ouch. This is not going to be easy...
> Probably all of these methods will require that you remove the embedded
> handwriting font from the Postscript file, and that'll be tricky. I'm not a
> Postscript programmer, but I do know that it should be possible to replace
> the font.
>
> If the file is not covered by any NDA or privacy restriction, you could send
> it to me, and I could try remove the offending font.
>
I appreciate the offer, I'm sending the file in private email. It is
not sensitive information, but I know better than to post attachments
to mailing lists. Thanks!
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
06-06-2008, 03:37 PM
"Dotan Cohen"
PDF reader that overrides fonts
2008/6/6 Florian Kulzer <florian.kulzer+debian@icfo.es>:
> I think inkscape is by far the best tool for this job, provided that you
> use version 0.46 (available in Lenny and Sid). It can read PDFs directly
> and convert their content to fully-editable text blocks, vector graphics
> or embedded bitmaps (depending on how the individual elements were
> embedded in the original PDF). It will probably replace the embedded
> non-standard font with a standard one automatically. You should then be
> able to change font size, positioning of the text blocks, etc. as if you
> had created this document yourself with inkscape. If you find that the
> spacing of the letters is strange then you might have to make use of
> "Text > Remove Manual Kerns".
>
Thank you, Inkscape opens the documents in the Tahoma font, which is
perfectly legible. However, saving back as pdf ruins the letter
spacing as you mention, yet, removing the manual kerns does not help.
Also, this only saves the first page of the document.
1) Is there another way to change the letter spacing? Even selecting
the entire document and then selecting a specific font did not help
with letter spacing.
2) Can Inkscape work with more than a single page? I have 20
documents, 10 pages on average each, and the test is next week!
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
06-06-2008, 03:47 PM
"Douglas A. Tutty"
PDF reader that overrides fonts
On Fri, Jun 06, 2008 at 06:37:35PM +0300, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> 2008/6/6 Florian Kulzer <florian.kulzer+debian@icfo.es>:
> > I think inkscape is by far the best tool for this job, provided that you
> > use version 0.46 (available in Lenny and Sid). It can read PDFs directly
> > and convert their content to fully-editable text blocks, vector graphics
> > or embedded bitmaps (depending on how the individual elements were
> > embedded in the original PDF). It will probably replace the embedded
> > non-standard font with a standard one automatically. You should then be
> > able to change font size, positioning of the text blocks, etc. as if you
> > had created this document yourself with inkscape. If you find that the
> > spacing of the letters is strange then you might have to make use of
> > "Text > Remove Manual Kerns".
> >
>
> Thank you, Inkscape opens the documents in the Tahoma font, which is
> perfectly legible. However, saving back as pdf ruins the letter
> spacing as you mention, yet, removing the manual kerns does not help.
> Also, this only saves the first page of the document.
>
> 1) Is there another way to change the letter spacing? Even selecting
> the entire document and then selecting a specific font did not help
> with letter spacing.
>
> 2) Can Inkscape work with more than a single page? I have 20
> documents, 10 pages on average each, and the test is next week!
If you can extract the graphics to e.g. eps, then extract the text as
text, you could rebuild the whole kit and cabootle with Latex. Yeah, I
know, its the long-way around.
This is the joys of sharing files with a format not intended to be
changed.
Doug.
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06-06-2008, 04:37 PM
Sjoerd Hiemstra
PDF reader that overrides fonts
Dotan Cohen" wrote:
> 2) Can Inkscape work with more than a single page? I have 20
> documents, 10 pages on average each, and the test is next week!
At least you can use pdftk to split the pdf into its individual pages.
pdftk in.pdf burst
BTW, KWord, part of KOffice, used to be able to open a pdf and edit it.
Haven't tried it for some time though.
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06-06-2008, 04:41 PM
"Dotan Cohen"
PDF reader that overrides fonts
2008/6/6 Sjoerd Hiemstra <shiems146@kpnplanet.nl>:
> Dotan Cohen" wrote:
>> 2) Can Inkscape work with more than a single page? I have 20
>> documents, 10 pages on average each, and the test is next week!
>
> At least you can use pdftk to split the pdf into its individual pages.
>
> pdftk in.pdf burst
If I had the time to learn shell scripting now, I would figure out how
to do this for 20 documents of 10 pages each. But I have a Materials
Engineering exam next week.
> BTW, KWord, part of KOffice, used to be able to open a pdf and edit it.
> Haven't tried it for some time though.
KWord opens these documents, but completely destroys the layout. The
layout is critical in engineering documents.
PDF reader that overrides fonts
