[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: extracting vector graphics from a PDF



On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 08:59:23 -0500, I wrote:

> Can anyone tell me how to extract a vector graphics image from a PDF?

On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 16:06:33 +0100, mathieu.malaterre@gmail.com replied:

> http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pdf2svg.html
> You'll get the whole page (including text fonts) as vectorial objects.

Part of my original problem was that I have a PDF that, for some reason,
won't open in Adobe Illustrator 9 (AI9).  My goal was to isolate an EPS
graphic from a page with text into AI9 and edit the image.

Anyway, your suggestion worked.  I converted file.pdf into file.svg, brought
that up in iceweasel, and wrote it out as file.ps.  Illustrator 9 could then
open file.ps.  The grouping of objects seemed pretty hacky, but I could deal
with that.

On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:10:58 +0100, Klistvud replied:

> ... pdftops should do the job. It's in Lenny's repos somewhere and it
> comes with pdftohtml and other command-line pdf utils, but the exact
> package name escapes me at the moment ...

That worked even better!  Converting z.pdf to z.ps gave a file that worked in
AI9 and also showed more reasonable grouping of objects.

I already had pdftops.  According to apt-file, I got it with poppler-utils
and/or xpdf-utils.

Thanks to both of you.


Reply to: