Digital Workshop

Hi, is there any way of viewing a pdf file in either a browser frame or docview frame, and if so is there then a way of printing the file, both of which I'd like to be seemless from within the publication and didn't have to load Adobe reader etc.

Alternatively can anyone think of a way to convert the pdf files to something that can be viewed and printed via Opus Pro.

Thanks, Colin

If you go here (http://www.swftools.org/), they have a PDF to SWF file converter. You could then play the SWF in your Opus file and print via a right-click action.

There are also PDF to HTML converters that could do what you want and then you could display it however you choose to in your Opus publication.

You could also use something like FoxIt PDf Reader (http://www.snapfiles.com/get/foxitpdf.html) as an alternative to Acrobat. It doesn't require installation and you could run your PDF as a command line and then use the reader to allow your users to do what they need/want with the PDF.

Hope some of these might give you some ideas that work for you.

THanks for taking the time to reply, I did a search on the internet following my post and came across Able2Extract which does similar to what you mentioned, can convert to numerous formats, one of them html which displays okay(ish) after conversion.

I'm playing with the software now to find which is the best to use for my purpose, thanks again for your input

Flash paper looks really good when incorporated in an Opus pub ...

COuld you explain what flash pages are and how you do them, can you convert pdf to flash pages, thanks

If you buy Flashpaper (http://www.adobe.com/products/flashpaper/), you can convert Office documents quickly to either SWF or PDF format. The SWF format comes with a player bolted onto your document, so you can use it to navigate through the document, zoom in and out and other things. It basically was designed by Macromedia to be an Acrobat killer, but like many software people do, Adobe said if we can't beat them, then we'll buy them. I think it's around $80 for a single license. It does work great, and the conversions are usually pretty good. I was offering up freeware, because that's where I usually start from and then see if it does enough for me so I don't have to buy anything.

Hi, Went back and had a look at the swftools you suggested originally, the conversion is a lot better quality but if I could ask a couple of questions, I'm developing a touch screen interface and don't plan on allowing the users access to mouse or keyboard,

When I looked at the converted pdf to swf, its showed me whats basically a slideshow of the document, which seemed to loop through the pages,

Is there anyway to control the paging using buttons, i.e. Page Up / down or is it the case that you can't.

Also you mentioned to print you'd have to right click on the displayed swf, is there a way of actioning this from a button also.

REally appreciate your help and guidance, thanks again

Hi

Having faced similar challenges with trying to get content found in one format to display in another, I wondered if it would be easier to copy and paste the PDF's text into Opus Pro or Opus Flex.

Why not simply copy it into a friendly medium like Opus that can be used with all of Opus's 'bells and whistles'?

Kind Regards,

I would say based on what you want to do, that bringing in the PDF in a browser object or DocView object will probably be the simplest and best solution for you.




No, they are pretty rudimentary (hence free), so you would have to figure out a way to create a container Flash file to house the output and then use buttons in it to navigate.



Since it's a Flash file, I'm not a 100% sure how you would do this other than like above putting it in a container SWF and then including a button to print the content SWF. Not particularly easy or elegant.

If you can do as Stephen suggests that might work for you as well.

If you don't have a ton of PDFs or a PDF with many pages, you could always take a screen capture of them and then bring them into Opus and display using any combination of things.

But, if printing is important to you and your users then I would definitely keep them PDF and use Acrobat or Foxit PDF Reader to do your printing. It will yield much better results for you.

Thanks for all your advice and solutions, I'm now going to sit down and have a play, and then decide which will be the best way forward.

Appreciate all your comments, thanks again