can i split a pdf file?

[Gary Kline]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 08:20:51PM -0500, Chuck Robey wrote:
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> Charlie Kester wrote:
> > On Sun 25 Jan 2009 at 16:18:26 PST Gary Kline wrote:
> >>
> >>     Is there a way to split a large pdf file into smaller [ say 1MB ]
> >>     chunks?  Or are there open source tools out there that i can build?  
> > 
> > pdfsam ( http://www.pdfsam.org/ ) does both splits and merges of pdf
> > files, but it doesn't seem to be in the FreeBSD ports system.
> > 
> > There is a pdfmerge in /usr/ports/print, but no pdfsplit.
> > 
> 
> It's a very junky way to do it (but the only way I know), use pdf2ps to convert
> the pdf to postscript, then you stand at least a good chance of doing the split,
> which many utilities allow.  You could even do it graphically via gv.  The
> problem with this (and the reason it might well fail anyhow) is because some
> things that pdfs do aren't implemented in any standard postscript level I ever
> heard of.  It depends how many of the more recent extensions to pdf are being
> used.  I've done this, *sometimes*.
> 
> Because the pdf spec is fully published, it might one day allow someone to write
> a splitter, but because the spec is SO enormous, maybe they won't, either.
> Actually, that's a really good notion ... I need to give it some thought.
> 
> > -- Charlie
> > 
> > 

	Thanks, Gents,

	But according to one smallish pdf file that I send to a web based
	tool, it was not a real pdf.  Or, more accurately, it (the pdf to 
	speech program) couldn't decode it.  I'll play around with this
	more tomorrow.  The problem with a lot of this electronic paper
	is that the lines are sequeezed together.  Makes scanning them
	that much more difficult.  Last month I read a book [book-book,
	from the library!] with more ~1.5 spaces between lines, and even
	tho the font was small, no problem in reading the entire text.  

	((FWIW: I'll find the URL of a piece on Hegelian ethics --PDF--
	and see if the firefox speech site can grok that!))

	gary



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