Re: add bookmarks to existing pdf?
On Sun, Apr 25, 2004 at 10:38:34AM +0200, Richard Lyons wrote:
} On Sunday 25 April 2004 08:56, Kevin Mark wrote:
} > On Sat, Apr 24, 2004 at 03:54:32PM +0200, Richard Lyons wrote:
} > > On Saturday 24 April 2004 14:07, David Purton wrote:
} > > > Hi,
} > > >
} > > > Does anybody know of a tool to add bookmarks to an existing pdf
} > > > under linux?
} > >
} > > Good question. I was about to ask here the more general question
} > > if anyone knows any pdf and/or ps editing tools.
} >
} > Hi all,
} > the thing about pdf and ps is that they are OUTPUT formats. There
} > might be such animal and many folks might be looking for such a
} > thing. I have not come across any.
}
} Point taken, but from my scanty reading about ps, it would be possible
} to have a kind of word processor which used ps as its file format.
} And, as I understand it, pdf is in effect a kind of ps wrapper with
} some sort of compression, so the same should be true for pdf. It ought
} to be possible, surely, to have a reverse interpreter for ps that could
} import a file back into lyx or the like. But a much cruder ps-parser
} and rewriter would be very useful.
Postscript is a Turing-complete language. It is non-trivial to treat it
as a document format. It is plausible, however, to treat PDF as a
document format (since it is deliberately intended not to be a
full-fledged language). By extension, a PS file can make a round-trip
through a conversion to and from PDF, and con be (sort of) treated as a
document format. It still isn't trivial.
I know of three ways to edit PS/PDF files. The first requires running a
PS file through pstoedit, which can convert it to several editable
formats (such as xfig or svg). The second involves using Adobe
Illustrator, which used to use a specially-commented, restricted subset
of PS as its file format and now uses specially-commented PDF as its
file format; Adobe developed both Postscript and PDF, and it is
unsurprising that they have the very best tools for dealing with them.
The third way is to actually learn Postscript (or PDF, but that's harder
because of the binary chunks -- Postscript is pretty much all text) and
edit it manually. I've done it, and it's a tremendously valuable skill
on occasion.
} richard
--Greg
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