Am 23.05.2015 um 03:17 schrieb Keith Nuttle:
On 5/22/2015 12:19 PM, Jonas Klein wrote:
Am 22.05.2015 um 15:58 schrieb Ken Springer:
The world started slowly moving that way when Adobe created
and released the PDF file format. Now you have the open
file formats (odt, ods, etc.). Who cares what program the
originator of a file used? When you get a PDF file do you
really care if Adobe Acrobat created the file? Or Word? Or
Word Perfect? AutoCAD? MicroCAD? No. You just want to be
able to read it.

Wrong! I am a translator and I usually want to overwrite
PDF files in
order to give my customers a translated file with the same
formats.
Always a pain in the ass if all I get is an image PDF.


Whether a PDF is an image or not has nothing to do with the
fact that it is a PDF file but rather where the PDF was
sourced from. If the person printed a PDF file directly
from a program as formatted text strings (WordPerfect, MS
Word, Quattro Pro, Excel, etc) to the PDF file. the text can
be copied from the PDF file the same as if it were in its
native program.

If the PDF file was printed to paper, and then scanned and
printed to a PDF file then the PDF File contains an image of
the document. To convert this back to text you must run it
through an OCR program.

If your client ask if he can print to PDF files, rather that
to paper and scan to a PDF file.


You and Neil understand my problems, unlike Ken, if he
sticks to his statement that we only need to be able to read
PDF files.
Quite often my customers have a piece of paper, e.g. a
certificate, scan it and send it to me as PDF. They do not
and should not have the formatted text strings. Otherwise
they could change a D to A+. ;-)
What could I do or suggest, apart from OCR with its
imprecisions?

To Neil: yep, that's what I do. If a customer wants an
AutoCad file, he either buys me the program or goes
somewhere else. I'd buy it myself if using it gives me
10,000 $ in one year, but not if I get back from it 1,000 $
in ten years.
Even Ken is right, in a sense. MY documents can be done with
LibreOffice. Unfortunately, the conversion ODT-DOCX or
Impress-PowerPoint is not perfect for many documents from
my customers.