This is really cool! I've spent the last few years debugging lots of PDFs while working on DocSpring, so I'm always looking for new tools to make this easier. Thanks for working on pdfsyntax!
Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
51–60 of 60 posts
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#52On a similar note, why haven't PDF been replaced? There are XPS, DjVu and XHTML (EPUB) but they all seem to be targeting different usecase (a packaged HTML file). What I want is a simple document format that allows embedding other files and metadata without the Adobe's bloat. I should be able to hyperlink within pages, change font-size etc without text overflowing and being able to print in a consistent manner.
An interesting aspect of PDFs that I didn't know until quite recently is that they're a subset of PostScript and that in fact accounts for some of the heftiness. PostScript is a full-on programming language (albeit an unusual one) but PDFs are not (i.e. they're not Turing complete). They do not support control flow and what could be expressed as a simple loop in PS must be unrolled and stored as a series of simple de…
Allow me to introduce you to PDF JavaScript…
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#53Many moons ago I was tasked with extracting data from a bunch of PDFs. I made a tool to visualise how characters were laid out on the page and bounding boxes of all the elements. The project was in the end a complete failure and several people were upset at me for not delivering what I was supposed to. In present day, with the capabilities that are now available with LLMs to extract data from PDFs I 100% would go the…
pdfjs does all of that and it’s pretty solid. I used it recently to extract tabular data out of 10 year batch of bank statements.
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#54Many moons ago I was tasked with extracting data from a bunch of PDFs. I made a tool to visualise how characters were laid out on the page and bounding boxes of all the elements. The project was in the end a complete failure and several people were upset at me for not delivering what I was supposed to. In present day, with the capabilities that are now available with LLMs to extract data from PDFs I 100% would go the…
Many moons ago worked on extracting 2D CAD drawings from PDFs and converting to full 3D. Fun times.
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#55Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#56On a similar note, why haven't PDF been replaced? There are XPS, DjVu and XHTML (EPUB) but they all seem to be targeting different usecase (a packaged HTML file). What I want is a simple document format that allows embedding other files and metadata without the Adobe's bloat. I should be able to hyperlink within pages, change font-size etc without text overflowing and being able to print in a consistent manner.
Because as soon as this conversation starts, the LaTeX crowd shows up, and everyone who something meaningful to add as a standard is blocked by that discussion.
I appreciate the dedication in making an account just to say this :D
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#57This is really cool! I've spent the last few years debugging lots of PDFs while working on DocSpring, so I'm always looking for new tools to make this easier. Thanks for working on pdfsyntax!
Thank you very much!
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
An interesting aspect of PDFs that I didn't know until quite recently is that they're a subset of PostScript and that in fact accounts for some of the heftiness. PostScript is a full-on programming language (albeit an unusual one) but PDFs are not (i.e. they're not Turing complete). They do not support control flow and what could be expressed as a simple loop in PS must be unrolled and stored as a series of simple de…
Allow me to introduce you to PDF JavaScript…
They ran doom on it
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#59Many moons ago I was tasked with extracting data from a bunch of PDFs. I made a tool to visualise how characters were laid out on the page and bounding boxes of all the elements. The project was in the end a complete failure and several people were upset at me for not delivering what I was supposed to. In present day, with the capabilities that are now available with LLMs to extract data from PDFs I 100% would go the…
Many moons ago worked on extracting 2D CAD drawings from PDFs and converting to full 3D. Fun times.
I’m very interested on if you managed to make it works?
Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many moons ago worked on extracting 2D CAD drawings from PDFs and converting to full 3D. Fun times.
I’m very interested on if you managed to make it works?
Yes and no. Had some initial prototype but had issues with all of the edge cases related to document formatting and detail and eventually abandoned it.