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2151
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on December 04, 2008, 10:23 AM »
its in the value store, the link is above

Weird... a three-tier way of doing business?  Yet it seems to work for them.

Thanks for the Serif Value Store link!


2152
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on December 04, 2008, 04:34 AM »
Not sure how easy it is to find their free and cheap site so here it is if you haven't got it,

Home page for Free Serif Software which includes PhotoPlus, DrawPlus, 3DPlus and WebPlus as well as PagePlus.

Looks like the free one won't do PDF but version 9 will which is under 10 dollars (or pounds) and version 10 is also very cheap compared to the new one.

Thanks, Grorgy!  :)  I couldn't see any link to their older free offerings from the main Serif page...  On the free Serif software page I see SE and version 9, but not version 10.  Is that in limbo between low-cost 9 and PagePlus X3, waiting for an even newer version before it gets "remaindered?"

Turns out I had a disk with version 8 on it, but that's probably a bit too old now.


2153
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on December 03, 2008, 10:59 AM »
@mateek, Dormouse:

I've never tried Serif stuff, but have never heard anything bad about it.  It tends to do fairly well in magazine group tests, for what those are worth, though seldom wins, and it sometimes turns up on "free" cover disks in the UK.

Maybe worth investigating, then; an interesting out-of-the-blue suggestion, too.  Thanks!   :)



2154
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on December 03, 2008, 03:46 AM »
does Nitro PDF also convert pdfs that are comprised of scanned images into searchable pdfs? Essentially, this would require the developer to ship Nitro PDF with OCR capabilities... I need a PDF solution for my XP machine

Darwin,

Have you looked at Able2Extract Professional ($129)?  I haven't tried it, but the Web site seems to suggest it has what you're looking for:


Able2Extract Professional 6.0 adds scanned (image) PDF conversion capabilities to the Able2Extract 6.0 feature set. For users working with documents that are paper based and need to be scanned or, have already been saved as image PDFs, Able2Extract Professional is the choice.

[Edit]
They have some cheaper options if you only need to convert to Word, not Excel or HTML or whatnot.  See their Product Comparison table.
[/Edit]




2155
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on December 03, 2008, 03:35 AM »
Not sure if the OP is still interested, but ABC Amber PDF Converter might be worth a look.

I'd briefly looked at just a few programs and services, and decided that while Zamzar came very close, none of them did a perfect job.  Besides, though I'd forgotten it when I started on this, Gizmo's TechSupportAlert premium edition newsletter did a group test of a number of converters.  He came to the same conclusion as I did, though he rated one of the commercial ones best, a whisker ahead of Zamzar.  However, at some point I suppose I'll have to take another look, making sure to try before I reach for my credit card this time...

@mateek:
I thought PagePlus was a DTP program, not a PDF editor?

2156
But if you want an app that provides an easy-to-use GUI for building & saving sets of search-replace operations -- which you can then call from a command-line -- consider BK ReplaceEm.

I looked through BKReplacem's command line options a while back, and didn't really understand them   :-[  So I went with SED.  It's case-sensitive, but that was OK for what I wanted.

2157
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS - New feature coming in next release - SendKeys
« Last post by rjbull on December 02, 2008, 03:45 AM »
I could make it an option easily enough.

That would be nice  :)  But the main thing is to know what it's doing.
2158
I have used this before and found it more than adequate.  :Thmbsup:

GSAR:  GSAR Project Page

I'd forgotten that one, even though I still use the DOS version - and it's a good one, too.  But again, unless they've updated it, it will only do one search/replace pair at a time.  When I wanted multiple pairs to use as a user-defined tool in TED Notepad and in ClipboardHelp+Spell, I ended up using SED.

2159
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS - New feature coming in next release - SendKeys
« Last post by rjbull on December 01, 2008, 10:21 AM »
That's fixed , thank you  :)
But now I think I see something else (needs someone else to check).  If I highlight All in the tree, the filter doesn't show matching items in the Recycle Bin that I know are there.  Shouldn't "All" mean all?  If I highlight Recycle Bin and filter it on its own, they do show up.

2160
rjbull: Eek, using 16bit dos executables under win32? Why haven't you searched for a replacement tool? :)

It's free, and, for my use, it works.  "My use" is mostly dealing with files made by DOS editors, and I use those because I'm familiar with them and because they're WordStar-style.  Also it's surprisingly hard to find a free Windows editor that does automatic *.BAK back-ups and has bookmarks.

I do have a Win32 search-and-replace tool now - HFFR Text WorkBench.  Just checked the Help file, and as well as GUI it has command-line support, though I've not had cause to use it yet.  Does Unicode, too.

[Edit]  Oops, just remembered this is about "free" apps.  HFFR Text WorkBench is payware.  You can still find the last free version, but I don't think it accepts command line arguments and it only does a single search-and-replace pair.  That was another of the advantages of MiniTrue, many pairs.
[/Edit]



2161
MiniTrue, A. Pipkin's "Ministry of Truth" (MT) utility.  On NO ACCOUNT overlook Eric Pement's third-party comments on it.  Go to his SED page and page down until you get to Console/command-line apps.  Direct link to his extra document here.  You need to know about its misbehaviours and workarounds.  I use it successfully under XP, but only with short file names.
2162
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS - New feature coming in next release - SendKeys
« Last post by rjbull on December 01, 2008, 03:53 AM »
mouser,

Thanks for implementing Ctrl-F for the filter   :Thmbsup:

Unfortunately...  I find a glitch with using the filter (not sure it's a bug).  Suppose you type something into the filter box.  The text appears in red.  Further suppose you have several hits.  If you go straight to one of those hits, with the text still in red, and click it, CHS reverts to the last thing you typed into the filter, if there was one, with the text in black.  If there wasn't anything in the filter before, it might be doing something random, but I haven't checked that properly.

On the other hand, if you go to the filter, enter your text, see it presented in red and type Enter after it, the text turns black and everything proceeds as expected; you've "locked" the text in the filter and can choose from the list of hits.  In other words, the final Enter is obligatory.

I don't say that behaviour is exactly wrong, but I wasn't expecting it.  Does it need to be trapped?

2163
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS - New feature coming in next release - SendKeys
« Last post by rjbull on November 28, 2008, 10:03 AM »
I can't really take credit for the functionality -- i'm using a 3rd party library -- but actually it does support delays.

Updated help file as well :)  With those features, you might get people wanting to use it for passwords/logins.  I presume that CHS's database isn't secure enough for that?  Not sure I'd need it to be - too used to KeePass and Roboform now, not to mention Linkstash.  But it should come in handy for filling in repetitive forms, especially for people who don't have Roboform, or use browsers Roboform doesn't support, like K-Meleon.

I uploaded a CHS beta if you want to experiment:

Thanks!  I'll download and try it out as soon as I can.
2164
General Software Discussion / Re: IDEA: programs that I have uninstalled
« Last post by rjbull on November 28, 2008, 09:50 AM »
This feature is partially present in Total Uninstall, where uninstalled apps appear greyed-out in the list, but in the old version 3.83 I run there's no place to add notes on why they were uninstalled.
2165
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS - New feature coming in next release - SendKeys
« Last post by rjbull on November 28, 2008, 04:47 AM »
mouser,

Will there be a configurable delay between simulated keypresses?  You've nearly got a macro application there.
2166
Might not be exactly what you're asking, but is FileBox eXtender the sort of thing you're looking for?  If it is, you might want to read the DC review on Best Open/Save Dialog Box Extenders.  That's probably a bit out of date now, e.g. it doesn't say that FileBox eXtender has now gone freeware, but worth checking for comments on the ideas in the programs.

( Disclaimer - I don't use FileBox eXtender  because I have enough similar functionality built into also-freeware PowerPro that I run anyway. )


2167
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on November 25, 2008, 08:11 AM »
Perhaps you'd been better off using ABBYY FineReader to OCR the documents into word format?

I didn't think of that...  I more or less gave up on translation to Word after Acrobat itself, Zamzar and Convert PDF to Word.net all failed to give usable results.  Sometimes I've wondered if there's a problem with the originating app.  I suppose the more complicated the source, the harder conversion will be.
2168
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on November 25, 2008, 05:12 AM »
An addendum to this thread: the company bought Acrobat 9 Standard, and to my dismay, it can't really edit PDFs as you'd expect a word processor to.  This from its Help:


"It’s a fact that Adobe® PDF is unlike other document formats, in which you can freely copy, paste, and move text and images on a page. Instead, consider a PDF as a snapshot of your original file. Use Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Standard to touch up and enhance the file for readability and distribution, and reserve more substantial revisions for your source application."

The Advanced Editing TouchUp Text Tool is very hard to use.  It deleted text I hadn't marked, and screwed up formatting when I tried to add anything or to close up gaps.  Adobe 9 does not really convert into Word DOC format either.  The DOC output is only RTF with the extension changed, and very minor internal changes from "official" RTF output.  These RTFs do not always import properly into Word, which sometimes locks up with "This application is not responding" messages.  Strangely, they will import into WordPad 5.1, and if saved in WordPad, will then import into Word.  They needed much editing, especially of tables, so much so that it might have been better to get a skilled person to type parts of the file from scratch.

I briefly looked at the PDFXchange Web site, but it didn't look as if it offered editing.  Maybe I was in too much hurry.  Next I tried Edvard's suggestion of Foxit PDF Editor - three cheers  :Thmbsup:, it works very well by comparison to Acrobat 9.  Editing still tends to be fiddly and time-consuming, but at least I can get what was wanted done.  At the time of writing Foxit are still offering a 10% Thanksgiving promotion, reducing the cost from $99 to $89.

2169
General Software Discussion / Re: Convert PDF to Word (online)
« Last post by rjbull on November 20, 2008, 05:08 AM »
Have you compared it to Zamzar?

2170
General Software Discussion / Re: phraseexpress: how does it work?
« Last post by rjbull on November 19, 2008, 09:15 AM »
Personally I use Typing Assistant.

The author of Typing Assistant offered DC members a discount here, but you have to e-mail him, and he doesn't say if it's time-limited.

2171
If I understand you (and the comm utility) correctly, I think you might want comm rather than diff.  It's another non-GUI command-line tool ported originally from Unix.

Usage: comm [OPTION]... LEFT_FILE RIGHT_FILE
Compare sorted files LEFT_FILE and RIGHT_FILE line by line.

  -1              suppress lines unique to left file
  -2              suppress lines unique to right file
  -3              suppress lines that appear in both files
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit.

Report bugs to <[email protected]>.

You'd want the -3 switch, leaving only the lines that aren't common to both files.  Usually, you have to sort the files first for this kind of utility to work as expected.

Available here:  GNU utilities for Win32

2172
Living Room / Re: Free printable shopping lists - neat idea
« Last post by rjbull on November 17, 2008, 07:46 AM »
I use HandyShopper, freeware for Palm.  There's a Windows Mobile version too.
2173
Out of curiosity, does anybody know of a good standalone bookmark manager?  Preferably a portable app that could also export its list as a tab-delimited or CSV file rather than a html page?

Have you checked the DC thread Multi-browser Bookmark Synchronization Tool and Other Multi-Browser Ideas?

The problem is likely to be your requirement for CSV output.  I'd like that, too.

2174
General Software Discussion / Re: phraseexpress: how does it work?
« Last post by rjbull on November 11, 2008, 05:37 AM »
sri seems to be the chief PhraseExpress enthusiast; try a PM?

Otherwise, have you looked at these?


External links:
2175
General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?
« Last post by rjbull on November 10, 2008, 09:25 AM »
Thanks, folks!   :)

The company decided to go with Acrobat 9 Standard Edition, which claims to be able to convert things into Microsoft Word format as well as do minor editing on the PDFs directly.  If the Word conversion works, it'll be useful in itself, as the third-party programs and services I'd tried for that have been hit or miss.  If there was less urgency to get the job done, I'd have looked harder at alternatives.

@tomos
Take a look at the Wayback Machine Internet archive.  The trouble is, you need the original URL (or you did last time I looked) and of course, you're unlikely to still have it when you need it.

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