k2pdfopt: optimizes PDFs for viewing on e-readers

[kim1406]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

I was encountering cases where scanned pages of a magazine with two columns were not being detected as such. On a hunch I added "-as" to my command line and it appears to have fixed the problem. Watching as the program ran I don't recall seeing a rotation exceeding +/-1 degree, but it appears that the columns were tight enough that even a minor rotation was a problem with recognition.

Perhaps this will save someone having similar problems some time fixing it.

Dave

Thank you my friend for your post, it's a great help.

[willus]

Originally Posted by kim1406

Thank you my friend for your post, it's a great help.

I'll add something to my 2-column help page about using auto-straighten and maybe add a pointer to it in the FAQ page.

[Anairb]

I'm trying to install k2pdfopt on my MacBook Pro 64bit (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013; 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5). I download it, follow the instructions, using Terminal, it appears on my desktop, but when I click on it, I get the message that it is damaged and should be moved to Trash. I've re-downloaded it several times, always with the same result. What do I do?

[willus]

Originally Posted by Anairb

I'm trying to install k2pdfopt on my MacBook Pro 64bit (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013; 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5). I download it, follow the instructions, using Terminal, it appears on my desktop, but when I click on it, I get the message that it is damaged and should be moved to Trash. I've re-downloaded it several times, always with the same result. What do I do?

Did you try the 32-bit and 64-bit versions both? Difficult to tell what it might be. This is not a common complaint from Mac users. What is the size of the download (exact number of bytes)?

[prokofiev5822]

I want to downsize a scanned document containing on the same page paragraphs of text and tables, all with the same text size. Naturally , I use the default mode with text wrap option. The result is excellent for text, but the tables are misconfigured because k2pdfopt considers them as paragraphs of text. Tables don't contain vertical lines. Is it possible to tell the program not restructure the tables, but only text paragraphs? Thanks

[willus]

Originally Posted by prokofiev5822

I want to downsize a scanned document containing on the same page paragraphs of text and tables, all with the same text size. Naturally , I use the default mode with text wrap option. The result is excellent for text, but the tables are misconfigured because k2pdfopt considers them as paragraphs of text. Tables don't contain vertical lines. Is it possible to tell the program not restructure the tables, but only text paragraphs? Thanks

Welcome to MR. It is difficult to tell what is a table just using a graphical layout analysis when the tables do not have a box around them. Can you post an example or two of what you are talking about (the source PDF file)?

[prokofiev5822]

Thanks for your fast answer!

Here you can see an example of table and text in the same page...

[willus]

Originally Posted by prokofiev5822

Thanks for your fast answer!

Here you can see an example of table and text in the same page...

Yeah, those types of tables are difficult to auto-detect. All I can suggest is that you don't use text re-flow (e.g. try -mode fitwidth to read the document in landscape mode on your reading device) or that you manually edit your PDF and add black boxes around the tables. Sorry there isn't a better solution right now.

PS. MS Word (Office 365) did a nice job converting your page to text using OCR, but it still had trouble with the table. See attached.

[prokofiev5822]

Thank you very much. I already assumed that it was not easy to solve this problem , so I had edited the document to add a black box around the table and, yes, k2pdfopt does a magnificent job with the document. It is not the perfect solution , but it's enough for me.

Thank you very much...

[Poul]

Edit: Never mind.

[willus]

Originally Posted by Poul

Edit: Never mind.

Sorry if I didn't see your post in time. I did not get an e-mail notice on this one for some reason. Sometimes that happens when posts come in too close together. Hopefully you resolved your issue.

[knntmr]

Sorry if I am posting a solven issue.

Is there any way to make k2pdf read the file name instead of metadata? I have numbers on each article in my library for PhD research. But My Kobo Aura H20 seem to show metadata as the file name, and it makes it really hard to find what you need in a 40-ish number large list of articles.

Or is it possible for k2pdf to stamp the given filename onto the metadata of the pdf?

I'm also open for suggestions; clearly I'm new in this area of devices.

Thanks in advance,

[willus]

Originally Posted by knntmr

Sorry if I am posting a solven issue.

Is there any way to make k2pdf read the file name instead of metadata? I have numbers on each article in my library for PhD research. But My Kobo Aura H20 seem to show metadata as the file name, and it makes it really hard to find what you need in a 40-ish number large list of articles.

Or is it possible for k2pdf to stamp the given filename onto the metadata of the pdf?

I'm also open for suggestions; clearly I'm new in this area of devices.

Thanks in advance,

There is not currently a direct option to put the file name into the TITLE metadata field, but you can specify that meta data on the command-line:

k2pdfopt -title "My Title" ...

So you could probably develop a script relatively easily that would generate a set of commands to substitute the file name for the title.

PS. I'll add that feature request to my list.

[knntmr]

Originally Posted by willus

There is not currently a direct option to put the file name into the TITLE metadata field, but you can specify that meta data on the command-line:

k2pdfopt -title "My Title" ...

So you could probably develop a script relatively easily that would generate a set of commands to substitute the file name for the title.

PS. I'll add that feature request to my list.

Many thanks for immediate reply, I'll try to do that.

[knntmr]

Ok, for now renaming with adding -title ".." worked very well.

My second issue is with the tables. I assume there is no perfect way for the program to detect tables and leave them as they are.

In a 2-column pdf, I generally prefer to reflow into 1.

But,

A. Sometimes there are pages in landscape mode with a full blown table.
B. Sometimes there are tables occupying half of the page and then followed by two columns.

In my experience, the conversion is butchering the tables in these scenarios. These also tend to happen in 1 column articles in some occasions. Is there any way to prevent this?

For example:

A: Leaving a selected page as it is and converting/reflowing the rest.
B: Manually selecting a section of one page (for a half-pager table) and reflowing the rest of the sections on that page.

It will be perfect for me if I can solve this issue.

Again, many thanks.