Talk:PDF, PS and DjVu

Rename Basic Editors section

I would rename this section in something like "Page Editors" or something like that, because that's what they really do.

I would leave the word "Editor" for software that can actually act on the content of a page (insert/move/delete objects).

So I would rename the "Advanced Editors" into "Editors".

Fhy (talk) 19:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The world of PDF editors is a weird one since they werent meant to be edited in the first place so I fully support some more clarity

> software that can actually act on the content of a page

How about we rename that section to exactly that, "Content editor"

> "Page Editors"

What do you think about "layout editor" which sounds a bit more clear to me.

Nici (talk) 02:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Add k2pdfopt to the wiki ?

https://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/ An extremely usefull tool. Tough to build AUR package, but there's someone keeping up with the hard work, https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/k2pdfopt/ Not sure where to put it in the article.Not sure if it was suggested before.

—This unsigned comment is by M040601 (talk) 09:21, 3 December 2019‎. Please sign your posts with ~~~~!

Scaling pdf

I think it would be nice to discuss scaling pdf. I found a couple answers but found no supporting documentation in terms of how the posters found these answers.

https://superuser.com/questions/676013/scaling-pdf-content-and-page-dimensions-from-command-line/676090#676090?newreg=9f301e4e969c4d948dffe786b56609a0

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/146852/print-pdf-scaled-down-and-aligned

ThinkPad (talk) 02:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Create a PDF from images

The man page of ImageMagick states "convert: Available for Backward compatiblity with ImageMagick's version 6 convert(1). Essentially, it is just an alias to a restrictive form of the magick(1) command, which should be used instead."

I think the wiki should recommend

$ magick input_1.jpg input_2.jpg Input_3.jpg out.pdf

Gerard (talk) 23:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The section PDF, PS and DjVu#Create a PDF from images uses gm convert, not convert. -- Lahwaacz (talk) 07:59, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I put instructions for ImageMagick as well (note the command is magick convert, just convert is deprecated) Fhy (talk) 05:04, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

LibreOffice as image-to-pdf convertor?

The following is not related to the ImageMagick command discussed so far in this section, but is related to PDF,_PS_and_DjVu#Create a PDF from images:

Quoting undoing revision 803986: "this is not an image-to-pdf conversion". If you follow the process, you start with a file of an image (picture) and end with a pdf file that show the same image. Why this can not be thought of as a conversion process? I am also not sure the process can not be automated with the right LibreOffice related tools. Regid (talk) 00:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

It does not convert the image itself, but a document that includes the image. You get many useless things in the output: unrelated metadata as well as unnecessary content (e.g. white margins depending on the page size of the document) so the result is not even visually the same as using a proper image-to-pdf converter. — Lahwaacz (talk) 08:10, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

As to the margins comment, to some degree you can change the margins settings in LibreOffice. There are also settings as Width, Height, Keep ratio, Original Size. It could be that with LibreOffice Draw you can also have a canvas size to your liking. As to the principal issue, I know very little about raster graphics, or about vector graphics. What LibreOffice does is most probably just an approximation for converting raster graphics to vector graphics. Or worth, it just embed the raster graphics as is. My point is although it could be far from perfect conversion, it is sufficient in many cases. And there are many people that are satisfied with it. I am not sure the methods mentioned so far are much better. Perhaps the section should begin with a statement there are no 100% algorithms for converting raster graphics into vector graphics. Which is why the suggested methods are only approximations. And include the comment about using LibreOffice for the job. Regid (talk) 21:29, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Why would you call this sufficient when all the other approaches produce better output, do not require manual configuration of the width/height/etc, and are available with much more lightweight programs (both imagemagick and graphicsmagick are over 20x smaller than libreoffice, not even mentioning img2pdf)? Have you actually tried to use one of these tools? Why are you not satisfied with them and what problem are you trying to solve with libreoffice? — Lahwaacz (talk) 21:47, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I am using that feature. Mainly to have images embedded with text to send to people as pdf. I am quite satisfied with it, and haven't heard complaints about the image quality. I guess I am using it within the constraint of the conversion, if it can be called like that. As for mentioning it in the article, in my view this is one more option. In a way, some people might look at LibreOffice conversion as a more simple tool. One more place where their LibreOffice suit comes handy. For someone familiar with word processors, or only GUI sort of user, it can be thought of as an easier tool for a one time job. Despite the possible need, which is sometimes not required, to set some aspects of the conversion manually. With CLI tool one has to look for the required command options. Which can be thought of as a requirement to set some aspects of the conversion manually. And in a sometimes less obvious manner, as the manual page, or help text, or the example in the Internet is accompanied with only short explanation. Regid (talk) 09:50, 25 March 2024 (UTC)