soPdf - Better than Yet another PDF to LRF converter

[oldsouth]

I am having problems getting this to work. I have VB 2008 on board, but when I double click on the soPDF.exe icon, the command prompt flashes. So I open a command prompt session..... this is where I need some help. If I type c:\soPDF.exe -i book title.pdf it starts to work, only to end with errors and no output. Can someone please show me the correct syntax for making this work? (I have soPDF and the pdf's on c: - no folders)

do I type this"c:\soPDF.exe -i Guns, germs, and steel_the fate of hum - Jared Diamond.pdf"

or "c:\soPDF.exe -i c:\Guns, germs, and steel_the fate of hum - Jared Diamond.pdf

Or something else.... really lost on this one..

[frabjous]

Try:

soPDF.exe -i "Guns, germs, and steel_the fate of hum - Jared Diamond.pdf"

...with quotations around the file name.

Or else try renaming the input .pdf so it doesn't have spaces in it.

[frabjous]

I've been using SoPDF a lot, so I went ahead and made a very simple GUI interface for Windows for using it. Again, I mainly made it for myself, but I thought I'd share it in case anyone else might find it worthwhile. I hope theguru or anyone else won't mind.

It looks like this:



It's very barebones, and not at all idiot-proofed. (E.g., it does not check to make sure the options make sense, it will not tell you if SoPDF encountered errors, etc.)

Usage: Extract the sopdfwin.exe file from the sopdfwin.zip file into the same directory as SoPDF.exe, and run it instead. (Or create a shortcut to it.) You choose your options, click process, and it will call SoPDF for you.

The .ahk file included in the .zip file is the source code for the GUI interface written for AutoHotKey. Make changes if you wish. AutoHotKey does not need to be installed to run the .exe, however. (It would be needed to recompile any changes, of course.)

Note, I still don't have an answer to the question about author names, etc., I posted above; that would have to be fixed on the other end. Right now, however, quotation marks are put around the filenames, and metadata fileds automatically when fed into SoPDF.

(Edited to include =X='s suggestions below.)

[=X=]

@frabjous Great job thank you for the GUI. You know what would be a nice feature. Is if the tool parsed the file name when it was selected.

Example we have a PDF with the filename

Plato - Republic.pdf

When selecting the file the author selection puts in "Plato" and the Title is "Republic"

I know I can type it myself, but tools are suppose to make life much easier .

Thank you,
=X=

[frabjous]

I agree that that would be nice. You just mean from the file name chosen (rather than, e.g., trying to read it from the metadata in the input .PDF)?

Next question: should it parse the input filename, or the output filename?

And would everyone agree that it should be "Author - Title" rather than "Title - Author" or something else? (I can imagine some fairly sophisticated parsing algorithms, as well as some very barebones ones; the latter are of course easier to code!)

I believe that sopdf will retain the author and name from the input .PDF if these flags are not used (or left blank in my GUI), although I had meant to test that [EDIT: tested and it does]; until theguru (or someone else) fixes the issue in sopdf.exe with quotation marks in the author field I pointed to above, I typically would prefer to make use of that feature than a lot of filename parsing. I guess filename parsing could be made optional, or done with a button or something.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by frabjous

I agree that that would be nice. You just mean from the file name chosen (rather than, e.g., trying to read it from the metadata in the input .PDF)?

Yes that is what I mean.

Originally Posted by frabjous

Next question: should it parse the input filename, or the output filename?

Defiantly the input filename. The output filename should auto fill to reflect the input name with a modification like: "inputname_soPDF.pdf".

Originally Posted by frabjous

And would everyone agree that it should be "Author - Title" rather than "Title - Author" or something else? (I can imagine some fairly sophisticated parsing algorithms, as well as some very barebones ones; the latter are of course easier to code!)

How hard would it be to add a radio button and allow both options. The ultimate solution would be to do what calibre does, but that is getting complicated. (Calibre allows the user to write some psudo regular expression and allows for complete customization of convention.)

Originally Posted by frabjous

I believe that sopdf will retain the author and name from the input .PDF if these flags are not used (or left blank in my GUI), although I had meant to test that [EDIT: tested and it does]; until theguru (or someone else) fixes the issue in sopdf.exe with quotation marks in the author field I pointed to above, I typically would prefer to make use of that feature than a lot of filename parsing. I guess filename parsing could be made optional, or done with a button or something.

Yes it does, however my experience is that most PDF, even professionally bough eBooks don't fill that information out. having the ability to enable disable this would be a good feature.
Maybe you can have a radio option

Autofill:
* None
* Author - Title
* Title - Author

=X=

[frabjous]

All right; I've modified the GUI interface in response to =X='s suggestions, or at least something close to them. (I deleted the old version, and uploaded the new version, and it's the one attached to the newly edited message above. The image is revised too.)

Originally Posted by =X=

Yes that is what I mean.

Defiantly the input filename. The output filename should auto fill to reflect the input name with a modification like: "inputname_soPDF.pdf".

Defiantly?

OK, I made it so you could do it with either the input filename or the output file name; personally, I get a lot of files with unhelpful names, and so long as I was renaming them in the process, I might as well make it easier on myself. But for others, doing it with the input file should work too.

I also made it to auto-fill the output file name to "inputname-soPDF.pdf", but only if you use one of the Browse buttons. In particular, if you click Browse for the input file name, after you finish, it'll automatically insert that into the output file name. Also, if you click Browse for the output file name, it'll use that as its default "suggestion" (even if the input filename was not filled in through the Browse button), but you can still edit it to something else if you wish.

(The particular ending -soPDF is also ignored in metadata parsing.)

If you don't use the Browse buttons for either, it won't do this, but I figure most people will use them, and it's good to have some flexibility.

The ultimate solution would be to do what calibre does, but that is getting complicated. (Calibre allows the user to write some psudo regular expression and allows for complete customization of convention.)

Yeah, that seemed over the top; especially prior to someone actually asking for it!

Maybe you can have a radio option

Autofill:
* None
* Author - Title
* Title - Author

As you can see in the new image above, I used normal buttons rather than radio buttons. It would have been just as easy with radio buttons, but since I'd probably make it default to "None" with radio options, you'd have to click something anyway. (And having it save your preferred option in some config file seemed over the top...) And a radio button would give the impression that changes made to the filename after having already done the parsing once would automatically end up reflected in the metadata even if the button was not re-clicked, and I wanted to give the flexibility of being able to do the parsing, but then change the filename afterwards while keeping the old parsed metadata values (or vice-versa). You can always change, then reclick this way.

Obviously, someone might prefer the other way of doing it, but there's no pleasing everyone, and I like this way better (...and I really wrote it for my own purposes, after all...)

Thanks for the suggestions!

[=X=]

Works great frabjous! Thank you

Originally Posted by frabjous

Defiantly?

Yes that word is better suited for my spell checker who "defiantly" refuses to cooperate.

=X=

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by =X=

Works great frabjous! Thank you

No problem.

Does anyone know why this thread is in the LRF subforum rather than the PDF forum, though, considering that SoPdf is PDF > PDF?

P.S. I also have to laugh at myself for using the redundant phrase "GUI Interface" above. Does this mean I no longer have the right to laugh at people who say "ATM machine" or "PIN number"?

[=X=]

Originally Posted by frabjous

No problem.

Does anyone know why this thread is in the LRF subforum rather than the PDF forum, though, considering that SoPdf is PDF > PDF?

P.S. I also have to laugh at myself for using the redundant phrase "GUI Interface" above. Does this mean I no longer have the right to laugh at people who say "ATM machine" or "PIN number"?

This tread was created before the "E-Book Format" section was created. When the mods where reshuffling the messages they put this in the LRF section. I did point this out to the mods, look for an earlier thread but I was ignored, imagine that .

Anyhow I agree as this thread should be moved because this tool is useful to many people outside of the SONY Reader world.

=X=

[jimmyzou]

When I tried a very simple PDF file, the error window pop up like this:

Originally Posted by frabjous

I've been using SoPDF a lot, so I went ahead and made a very simple GUI interface for Windows for using it. Again, I mainly made it for myself, but I thought I'd share it in case anyone else might find it worthwhile. I hope theguru or anyone else won't mind.

It looks like this:



It's very barebones, and not at all idiot-proofed. (E.g., it does not check to make sure the options make sense, it will not tell you if SoPDF encountered errors, etc.)

Usage: Extract the sopdfwin.exe file from the sopdfwin.zip file into the same directory as SoPDF.exe, and run it instead. (Or create a shortcut to it.) You choose your options, click process, and it will call SoPDF for you.

The .ahk file included in the .zip file is the source code for the GUI interface written for AutoHotKey. Make changes if you wish. AutoHotKey does not need to be installed to run the .exe, however. (It would be needed to recompile any changes, of course.)

Note, I still don't have an answer to the question about author names, etc., I posted above; that would have to be fixed on the other end. Right now, however, quotation marks are put around the filenames, and metadata fileds automatically when fed into SoPDF.

(Edited to include =X='s suggestions below.)

[frabjous]

My guess is that you didn't unzip the GUI executable into the same directory as SoPDF.exe, as instructed.

The GUI does not contain SoPDF. You need to download and extract it first (as per the first post in this thread). Then extract SoPDFwin.exe into the same directory.

[jimmyzou]

Originally Posted by frabjous

My guess is that you didn't unzip the GUI executable into the same directory as SoPDF.exe, as instructed.

The GUI does not contain SoPDF. You need to download and extract it first (as per the first post in this thread). Then extract SoPDFwin.exe into the same directory.

They are in the same directory .... Any other hints? do I have to put them in C:\ ?

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by jimmyzou

They are in the same directory .... Any other hints? do I have to put them in C:\ ?

By "them", do you mean the PDFs, or the SoPDF.exe and SoPDFwin.exe executables? I can tell from your error message that the PDFs are on D: Where are the executables?

It's worth a try running it from C:. Since I only wrote the shell, I don't know what the precise conditions are for running SoPDF itself, but I've only tested it from C.

What is drive D:?

Could you provide a screenshot of the complete contents of the folder containing SoPDFwin.exe and SoPDF.exe? What OS is this?

Have you tried running sopdf from a command line rather than using my GUI? Does it work then?

EDIT: I just tried running them from a flashdrive, and it worked fine. That is, however, the precise error message I get if sopdf.exe and sopdfwin.exe are not in the same folder. You did unzip both, right?

[jimmyzou]

It's working now, somehow the computer I was using at work has problem with it. It work perfectly on my home laptop.