21 Dec
2009
21 Dec
'09
5:35 p.m.
Philip Pemberton wrote:
Also, does anyone know of an app that can take the PDF
file, OCR it
and then insert the text as a background layer while leaving the image
alone? I'm pretty sure Acrobat can do this, but like most Adobe
software, the price tag is somewhat... eye-watering. "If you have to
ask how much it costs, you can't afford it."
I attempted to check all the responses, however I did not find any which
addressed the reverse operation, i.e. from PDF to text. Fortunately, all
my PDF files are MACRO-11 "Listing" output without any diagrams
or images. i.e. COMPLETE and ONLY text.
I scanned Google, but did not find anything very helpful. Is it possible
to obtain a suggestion here?
I have about 100,000 lines of code in over 3 dozen PDF files that were
scanned from the hard copy listings. Unfortunately, the original text
source
files were lost, so the PDF files are a last resort. Other than typing
in the
code by hand from the PDF file, are there any good freeware programs
to convert a PDF back to a text file?
The next step will be to strip out the MACRO-11 "Listing" format and
keep only the original source code. I will probably use FORTRAN, but
perhaps someone has already done that as well?
These PDF listing are from the 1980s and belong to source code for a DEC
PDP-11 system. While the "PDF to Text" program is most likely going to be
run under in DOS box, I hope that the actual problem qualifies to be
considered here. Actually, my system that supports my browser will be
Windows XP and I don't have any other choice (unless I agree to spend
considerable time to learn another operating system - in which case I may
not have enough time to pursue the actual problem), so a Windows compatible
program is what I will need to use.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine