Re: How to cut/crop a part of a PDF file
>> What tool can I use to extract some part of a pdf file?
>> In kpdf, I can copy a piece of the PDF image and save it, but it's only
>> saved as a bitmap, whereas I'd like to keep it in vector form.
> You don't ask much, do you?
No, indeed. Mac OS X's `preview' does it out of the box.
> <theory>
> AFAIK: PDF is not strictly speaking a vector-graphics format. It is
> a subset of Postscript, which is actually a programming language for drawing
> documents. It is designed for output, not input or editing. Therefor, it
> is *very* hard to convert from PDF to a structured document format.
> </theory>
Actually, PDF is not a programming language, contrary to Postscript.
So it's much easier to deal with (and more difficult to introduce viruses
into it, among other things).
> What exactly are you trying to extract?
For example, I have a PDF which contains a poster with (on the side) some
meta-information about the author, the intended color scheme, the intended
paper quality, the revision number, the order number, the purpose, the date,
and I'd like to take the poster part and throw away the rest.
> I assume you aren't trying to get pictures out, but for the benefit of
> anyone else, I'll mention pdfimages from the package xpdf-utils, which will
> extract the bitmapped images from a PDF.
I do want a picture out, but not a bitmap picture.
> Also from xpdf-utils you can find pdftops -- converting PDF to Postscript is
> kind of silly, but just maaaaybe you can do what you want with a Postscript.
I thought about it too, but couldn't find a postscript tool that does it.
> Scribus is probably your best bet for actually importing a PDF in any
> friendly way -- I think they were at least working on that, not sure if it
> is really usable
Hmm... never heard of it. Looks interesting. I don't know how to make it
read PDF, tho.
> Finally, pdftk is described as "an electronic stapler-remover, hole-punch,
> binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses" for PDFs. Most notably for
> your question, it will let you split the pages in to separate files.
Yes, I looked at it, but I want to extract part of a page.
Stefan
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