PDFMasher Turns PDFs into EReader Friendly HTML the Right Way

[djulian]

Sorry for the very short post, but I thought this looked like it could be of interest.

http://lifehacker.com/5820487/pdfmas...-the-right-way

[halipleumon]

thanks! that's awesome.

[DiapDealer]

The minimum requirement for Linux is Ubuntu 11.04?? That's a bit disappointing.

EDIT: and Python 3 is required. Ouch! Off to create a virtual machine.

[charleski]

When you're making the conversion you select and identify certain text blocks so it knows what's what.

... So it's far from being a one-click conversion. You need to specify the structure of the text yourself during the process. OTOH, given that the majority of PDFs have a very poor structure, this is a good way to approach the problem, and it seems to offer reasonable tools to separate out most of the elements.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The minimum requirement for Linux is Ubuntu 11.04?? That's a bit disappointing.

EDIT: and Python 3 is required. Ouch! Off to create a virtual machine.

You sticking with the LTS? Backports probably has all the required packages.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

You sticking with the LTS? Backports probably has all the required packages.

I'm sticking with Maverick Meerkat right now (10.10). I'm OK with it, but Ubuntu has become less and less appealing to me with each new release. I've got some pretty good hardware and it's still slow like Moses.

Anyway, I tried installing PDFMasher on the newest Linux Mint (Xfce) and the debian package manager said all dependencies were resolved (Python 3 requirements), but alas, no love. It won't run. I'll have to look into building from source. But, I love an adventure.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm sticking with Maverick Meerkat right now (10.10). I'm OK with it, but Ubuntu has become less and less appealing to me with each new release. I've got some pretty good hardware and it's still slow like Moses.

Anyway, I tried installing PDFMasher on the newest Linux Mint (Xfce) and the debian package manager said all dependencies were resolved (Python 3 requirements), but alas, no love. It won't run. I'll have to look into building from source. But, I love an adventure.

I'm not a huge ubuntu fan to begin with. I run Kubuntu on my netbook, simply for ease of install (Normally I use Aptosid to get a Debian Sid install in a hurry, but not everything wanted to work out of the box when I got my netbook, and I just didn't feel like working with it. I prefer getting stuff installed and working quickly, then tweak to my preferences as I get time.), and it isn't quite as bad as normal ubuntu about speed. I think most of it is the crud they toss into gnome and the default apps they have on it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

I'm not a huge ubuntu fan to begin with. I run Kubuntu on my netbook, simply for ease of install (Normally I use Aptosid to get a Debian Sid install in a hurry, but not everything wanted to work out of the box when I got my netbook, and I just didn't feel like working with it. I prefer getting stuff installed and working quickly, then tweak to my preferences as I get time.), and it isn't quite as bad as normal ubuntu about speed. I think most of it is the crud they toss into gnome and the default apps they have on it.

I agree about the Ubuntu bloat. But I like to try newer programs and they're good about adopting newer libs sooner than others. So I use it mostly for experimentation. I was always fond of CentOS's rock-solid stability, but they were stuck in the dark ages with glibc and a package update system that relied on python 2.4. It's all a balancing act between stability, performance and relevance (cutting edge dev stuff) with Linux flavors. Ubuntu seems to focus on relevance to the detriment of the others.

I really wish I could get this PDFMasher to work. I may have to break down and try it on my Windows virtual machine.