Reading PDF - a cry for help

[Dar Scott]

I see three directions to pulling images out of PDF files on Windows:

1.  Use a command-line utility and shell() plus file I/O
2.  Loosely parse the PDF file
3.  Create an external

I recommend starting with #1 and seeing how it works for you.  All are possible.  

Dar

On Sep 29, 2011, at 8:01 AM, Graham Samuel wrote:

> Folks, for some months now (it seems even longer) I have been seeking a solution to the problem of reading PDF-formatted images into Livecode stacks. What I'm looking for is solution that  looks like an 'import paint' command: in other words, I want to be able to load a small subset of the possible contents of a PDF - just bitmap images - into a stack via script. Sadly I want to do this on a PC, running at a minimum Windows XP. My users want a simple solution that makes reading from a PDF no more complicated than reading a JPG.
> 
> I have explored several possibilities, including using a 'free' PDF reader that is somehow hidden from the user of my app, and using say 'shell' to control it and to pass an image to LiveCode. However I have not found a realistic way of doing this, particularly when I include the need to have a very simple installation process - the user should not see any additional application, nor be obliged to provide substantial additional resources, as would be true for example if one used ImageMagick in this way in a PC context.
> 
> Short of RunRev itself extending input formats to include PDF (not impossible, but not likely in the short term), the solution would seem to be to licence a third-party library component and integrate it into my app by the use of bridging ('glue') code. I got pretty near with this one, having identified a component with suitable licensing terms and functionality (Sorax DLL). RunRev suggested that I could do the gluing with the aid of a 'C' programmer. It turns out after a lot of research by Thierry Douez, who has been helping me, that what I need is a person familiar with Visual Studio to accomplish this - but I despair of finding such a person who would also be familiar with the externals interface of the LiveCode engine. Maybe I will find such a person, but the trail does seem to have gone cold.
> 
> Has anyone any suggestion as to how I might proceed? My app works so nicely with JPG and PNG files, and I have (a little) belief that I could make it work with TIFF files, but without PDF input I am dead in the water.
> 
> TIA
> 
> Graham
> 
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---------------------------
Dar Scott
dba 
Dar Scott Consulting
8637 Horacio Place NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111

Lab, home, office phone: +1 505 299 9497
For Skype and fax, please contact.
dsc at swcp.com

Computer Programming and tinkering,
often making LiveCode libraries and
externals, sometimes writing associated
microcontroller firmware.  
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