[Sca-cooks] PDF files

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>Phlip asked:
>>While you're at it, why don't you convert the downloads at :
>>   www.countryside.gov.uk/NewEnterprise/Economies/craftpublications.asp
>>
>>from that obnoxious pdf to text files for me?
>What is your problem/concern about PDF formated files?
>
>I've been considering going to PDF files for the Florilegium. 
>Possibly instead of the current text, RTF and HTML files. Maybe 
>along with them.

Just as a guess, I'd say one big problem with .pdf files is the 
more-or-less impossibility of manipulating them, extracting text for 
other documents, etc. They're pretty immutable, as far as I can tell, 
although I have not yet tried using Photoshop to convert to .eps, 
from there to tiffs, and then run through OCR. Usually, though, it's 
simpler to try to obtain the file in non-.pdf format from the 
original source.

See, you, Stefan, and I are probably eminently aware to an equal 
extent of the fact that when our OS developer creates a format 
that'll cross platforms, it's intended to cross platforms and be more 
or less universally accessible. However, when the other guys talk 
about crossing platforms, it means something a little different...

It's nice that OS X will generate .pdf's at the drop of a hat, 
without things like Acrobat, but it's somewhat harder to change that 
.pdf back to something else. It's a little like saving a huge digital 
photograph you took of the Mona Lisa as a 3.5" square Polaroid print. 
You can look at it, but not a lot else.

Adamantius