PDF import extension-How to use?

[CalWriter]

I realize from responses to another thread which I started that the editing "potential" of the PDF extension is limited. But are there any instructions available as to how to use this extension?

Thanks,

CalWriter

[Hagar Delest]

Just open the PDF, the extension will try to recollect the different objects and change it (into frames IIRC). yuo may end up with a bunch of text fragments in different frames.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[CalWriter]

Are there any printed instructions for the PDF import extension?

Thanks,

CalWriter

[Hagar Delest]

There is no manual, it's a complex filter that will try to import the document. But the user has no influence. Open the PDF and that's all. Either it works or it doesn't. But in latter case, nothing to be done to change that.

[rubo77]

when i open a pdf with openoffice i just get stuff like

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

endobj   
6 0 obj   
<< /Length 4178 /Filter [  /FlateDecode ]   
>>   
stream   
”j~E~£‡²®MÕG%g„t€J¿   ŽE°§8€¬yúd,pÏIcí,×ËÀ`JaàjB(Öp–Öê0`×·-”ô%h,dQùyUœ'’îHQ«^ñƒsàï…?âÞ£ap^»ìÈvëw
P<

i have the extension installed:

[acknak]

When you have the import extension installed, and you open a PDF, it should appear as a new OOo Draw window, but it looks like yours is imported as text into OOo Calc.

What steps did you use when you opened the file? Did you do anything to try and have it open in Calc, or did OOo just decide that on its own?

Could you attach your PDF file here, if it's not too big (128k limit)? You can use the "Upload Attachment" link (below the message entry area after you click "POST REPLY"). [Forum] How to attach a document here

[rubo77]

i tried calc and i tried writer, but if i click on "open with..." and chose oo-draw, it still opens a new oo-writer window and opens it :{

[acknak]

What happens if, rather than starting from the desktop, you first start Draw (with a new, empty document), then do File > Open and select your PDF?

If that does not work, either OOo or your PDF file is broken somehow. You can attach your PDF and we can see if that's the problem, or you can try opening a PDF file that you know is good.

[RoryOF]

If you open Adobe Reader, will it open your .pdf? If not, the .pdf is broken.

[rubo77]

the pdfs can be opened by all pdf-viewers: but not with my oo-draw

see:

[thomasjk]

I can open the pdf in Draw with 3.2.1 on Win 7.

[RoryOF]

It opened for me with 3.3 (build m81) on Windows 2000. I suggest using OOo Extension Manager to remove the extension, then re-downloading and re-installing.

Edit: I note there are two versions for the Mac. You need to make certain you D/L the correct one.

[rubo77]

i use ubuntu

[RoryOF]

I suggest using OOo Extension Manager to remove the extension, then re-downloading and re-installing.

[CannedMan]

Apologies for reopening this, thus far, unsolved thread. I am having the same problems CalWriter seems to have: I cannot find any way of doing an import. I can open pdf-s via File → Open…, but the result is pretty bad (trying to import pdf-s made from emails). Any suggestions?

[RoryOF]

Having noted your quest(s) for perfection as instanced in various posts, I would strongly advise you not to use OpenOffice as a PDF reader. I suggest that you should stick to one of the standard PDF readers, probably Adobe Reader.

[Villeroy]

PDF is not a document format. It is a virtual print out. It is more like a picture. With textual content it is comparable to a OCR scan of a picture. If you can print it to paper you can print to PDF as well. And just like you can not get an electronic document from paper prints easily, you can not convert PDF back to something editable. It is like pushing the tooth paste back into the tube.
Since many thousands of different applications can print to PDF, it is impossible to offer all edit options of all those applications in one application.
With the PDF import filter being installed, the Draw component of OpenOffice tries very hard and quite successfully to compose a Draw document from the various graphical and textual elements of a given PDF. Text blocks are drawn line by line as stripes of text boxes. Nevertheless, it is just an approximation. I used this import filter to fix small typos in textual PDF documents where the original document was not availlable.

[CannedMan]

The reason importing pdf is of interest, is for the need to include a copy of an email conversation as a source in my thesis. I chose to instead cut and paste (with some heavy editing afterwords), but being able to insert a pdf-document would be excellent, as this would allow for text to be just that: text.

[mgroenescheij]

The reason importing pdf is of interest, is for the need to include a copy of an email conversation as a source in my thesis. I chose to instead cut and paste (with some heavy editing afterwords), but being able to insert a pdf-document would be excellent, as this would allow for text to be just that: text.

Why don't you keep the PDF file separate and create hyper links in the odt file?

[CannedMan]

Because, as it is a thesis, it needs to be a single document.

[mgroenescheij]

Because, as it is a thesis, it needs to be a single document.

Normally you analyze first your problem and then select the tool that can do the job. I have the feeling that you started with selecting a tool (OpenOffice) and then complain that the tool doesn't meet your requirements.

If you export your thesis into a PDF document you are able to insert the PDF from your emails into your thesis as an appendix, this way you have everything into one document.
All you need to do is creating the hyperlinks in your PDF document.

In other words there is always more than one way to solve your problems.

[CannedMan]

Normally you analyze first your problem and then select the tool that can do the job. I have the feeling that you started with selecting a tool (OpenOffice) and then complain that the tool doesn't meet your requirements.

If you export your thesis into a PDF document you are able to insert the PDF from your emails into your thesis as an appendix, this way you have everything into one document.
All you need to do is creating the hyperlinks in your PDF document.

In other words there is always more than one way to solve your problems.

I thank you for your reply, but there seems to be a misunderstanding here. The thesis has been written in OpenOffice; all formatting is done through the AOO suite, and everything is sewn together in the master document. The foreword, introduction, chapters and appendices each have their separate files, as they should. The pdf I desired to insert, would need its own heading (which should be in the same style as the rest of the document), if not simply for the cohesive [?] design, then at the least because it must be included in the table of contents. For that reason, being able to import a document (in this case a PDF) into the application (AOO) used for designing and writing the paper, is of great interest.

[RoryOF]

One way may be to export the relevant section of the PDF as PNG or other graphic format and paste it into thesis as an illustration. http://www.zamzar.com offer such a free conversion (and to other graphic formats). OpenOffice likes PNG best.

[musikai]

As RoryOF suggests using images is a way to go. If you want to have no pixelation at all you can use svg as image format. (The conversation from pdf to svg is a little bit tricky though.) If you use images that cover the whole page, then you would anchor them to your heading paragraph and any further page to the first paragraph after a page break. You have to decide if there's enough place at the top for your normal heading to show or if the heading in the PDF/image is sufficient. In the latter case you can simply change the color of the heading to white. So it doesn't show in the document but it does in the TOC.
How many pages does your PDF have?

(In fact there's is a way to merge PDFs into the final PDF using external tools like PDFtk. The project in the signature does this by using macros. But for your case this isn't useful as it isn't made for master documents.)

[CannedMan]

The three PDFs I wanted to include, were each one-page files.

If you want to have no pixelation at all you can use svg as image format.

This would be a decent solution, yes. The best solution, of course, would of course be to have the correct font and actualy letters (i.e. text), to assure it is searchable.

Just so no one wonders: I circumvened the PDF import by sending the desired email to print, then copying the contents of the new tab for pasting into the appendix document; with some ugly editing and tweaking, I achieved the desired visual result. I have no need to import PDFs at the moment, but it will surely be useful at a later time to find a good way to do this (avoiding all this tweaking and the less than desirable table layout).

[mgroenescheij]

Just so no one wonders: I circumvened the PDF import by sending the desired email to print, then copying the contents of the new tab for pasting into the appendix document;

If people doubt about your integrity there's nothing you can do. You can fake an email and create an PDF output from it. Or you can even edit a PDF file with PDF editor. So there's no proof of authenticity of the source.

I have no need to import PDFs at the moment, but it will surely be useful at a later time to find a good way to do this (avoiding all this tweaking and the less than desirable table layout).

The purpose of OpenOffice is to create and maintain Office documents, the purpose of a PDF output is to create an output format that everybody can read / print without the need of having or buying the application.
Let's assume that the developers find a way to import PDF files into an existing document they need to work according user requirements. What are the requirements?
You want a non editable solution to prove your integrity and others want an editable solution for what ever other reason they have. This sounds to me Mission Impossible.

[musikai]

@CannedMan
So you are using an email program and want to have its print view as result in your appendix. The PDF you got has the desired layout?
You could use Inkscape to convert it to SVGs. Open the PDF in Inkscape, choose the page and save as SVG. You have to do this for every page of the PDF.
If you have the fonts installed on your system Inkscape should be able to convert it quite perfectly to SVGs (that use these fonts and need them). If you insert these SVGs into OpenOffice and export to PDF the fonts will be embedded and the text will be searchable.

[CannedMan]

Thank you.

[mariakatosvich]

Install the PDF Import extension

Go to Extensions.OpenOffice.org, and download the PDF Import extension to your system.

Install the extension in OpenOffice

Launch OpenOffice. Go to the menu bar, and click on the Tools tab. Select Extension Manager. Click Add, and open the extension file located in your Downloads folder. Choose whether to install the extension for your user profile or for all user profiles on the system, then click Accept. Click Enable in the Extension Manager to complete the installation.

Import a PDF file

Launch OpenOffice Draw. Go to the menu bar, and click on the File tab. Select Open, and find and select the PDF file you wish to import. To edit the PDF file, highlight the text that you wish to alter, and use the toolbar to edit words, fonts or colors. To save the file as a PDF, click on File, then select Export as PDF. Choose your preferences, and click Export to save the file.

[jonhwilliams]

After experiencing the same problems listed in this thread, with getting OpenOffice to open a pdf, I was able to resolve by right-clicking the pdf, and selecting :

Open with > Choose default program... >

Navigate to the location of SDraw.exe (in my case C:\<install_location>\Apache_OpenOffice\program)

I unchecked "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" then clicked OK

This resolved the "garbage" view and properly displayed the PDF

really nice.