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| Author | Testing Downversioning of PDF Files (Read 30166 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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68040
512 MB  Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done ! 
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on: January 11, 2024, 14:42
I am currently testing a way to mass downversion PDF files so they can be read with Adobe's Acrobat Reader 3.0 on vintage systems. As I found many PDF files on the Garden - and definitely most outside of it - are meant for modern day readers and/or have fonts not installed on vintage boxes by default. So I figured out a way to convert those PDFs in bulk and assign them a default font found on every MacOS box more recent than version 7. You need a halfway decent Linux box or modern day Mac for that (Ghostscript must be installed) and be able to run shells scripts on it (bash be best). If anyone cares for the details, let me know and I'll post them here. |
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 199
Reply #1 on: January 11, 2024, 20:33
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In recent months I've downloaded hundreds of PDFs from one particular source. I can open about 95% of these with Acrobat Reader 4*. But success with Acrobat 3 is about 25%, which also crashes a lot, and searches are unreliable. In general, I estimate Acrobat 4 opens about 75% of PDFs I encounter. If it's an important file I can't open, I'll view it at work. Sometimes saving from there produces a file which can be read on my Mac. I've not worked out a pattern for the files I can't open. Your bulk converter sounds interesting, but the need for a modern machine rules it out for me personally. * Acrobat Reader 4 requires a PPC, but it is available on this site. I rate it better than v5 too.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #2 on: January 11, 2024, 20:49
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Well, ghostscript needs to be able to interpret modern day PDFs before it can downversion them. But any Linux box will do, even a StickPC or a Raspberry.
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #3 on: January 11, 2024, 21:54
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what i would be interested in Acrobat 2.1 or 1.0 for 68k (3.0 is more resource intensive from my previous tests)
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #4 on: January 11, 2024, 23:46
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Neat, 68040!  I too was just looking at Acrobat 4's greater PDF readability, so I'm installing it in SheepShaver to do something similar since it supports System 7.5.3 and up. Have you also tried setting-up the Distiller PDF printer chooser file from Acrobat 5 to see if it runs on earlier Macs running 7.x or Mac OS 8.1? I'm thinking that you might have already tried it  I'm also trying out Office 98 on SS to see if I get any mileage with it, since I want to see how much easier it might be to use it to create and work on RTF-formatted files with a few added formatting options; plus it's extras may also come in handy I wouldn't even had thought of it but people running Linux were all raving about the speed of Office/Word 97 under Wine, so it got me a little curious to try it out on the Mac side (under W10, not Linux due to Chrome's root permission limitations)I know I liked Word 98 on most of my Power Macs, and it's running pretty decent in my emulated 8.1; it may even be quicker on 7.6.1, which I'll try out at some point 
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #5 on: January 12, 2024, 00:55
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@snes1423 - Sorry folks, CombatillityLevel=1.1 is the lowest GhostScript can go for and that conforms to Adobe Reader 2.0. But in all likelihood you'd loose a lot(!) of formatting info with that. Level 1.2 conforms to Reader 3.0 and is the most reasonable approach in my view, but YMMV. There is no way - short of stomping it all down to JPEG - to revert back to Reader 1.0 format. PS: Even Level=1.1 /w "pswrite" is only available in GS versions <9.10. After that they just dropped PS 1 level support altogether. The conversion process first transforms the PDF to PS1 and from there back to PDF 3.0 format.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #6 on: January 12, 2024, 01:02
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@cballero - I have Distiller installed but the problem is not with the PS file (that format hasn't changed much for ages). The catch is the Portable Document File that the distiller "distills" out of the Postscript. If you feed it anything higher than Postscript level 1, the resulting PDF is full of "operations to complex to compute" for the Reader. Luckily I have a virtual Linux machine running inside my virtual Linux machine, that allows me to go down to GS 9.06 - which still supports PS Level 1 (device "pswrite").
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #7 on: January 12, 2024, 03:15
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I stand corrected: The 9.06 version of Ghostscript does indeed support CompatibilityLevel=1.0. Which at least in theory should result in an Acrobat Reader 1.0 compatible PDF. This setting also reduces/removes most translation errors from the resulting PDF when opened up in Reader 3. But the output file looks ugly at 75dpi, so I'll try my luck with 150 or 200dpi.
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #8 on: January 12, 2024, 04:44
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@snes1423: Adobe Acrobat v1.0 and Adobe Acrobat v2.1 DL from the MG. Version 1.0 runs on Mac Systems 6.0.5 and up, and can even run in mono Mac's like the Plus and SE, etc. Very lightweight compared to what came after it. I actually do use this version in System 6. Version 2.1 runs on Mac Systems 7.0 and up, and requires a Mac II at minimum. @cballero: My favorite Acrobat is version 4 (4.05a). What I like about it is for much the same reason as @ovalking, which is it opens a large number of PDFs that you can throw at it. Especially though, unlike the later versions of Acrobat, it doesn't nag you if you attempt to open a PDF created by newer versions. Primarily, I use Acrobat 4's Distiller for printing to PDF, Which I set to distilling version 3 PDFs, which I can then open in 68k systems if needed. Alternatively, Jaws PDF Creator is almost as good as Distiller 4 when it comes to printing to PDF. But like Acrobat/Distiller 4, it too is PPC only, and sadly, Mac OS 8.5 and up. Whereas Adobe's Distiller 4 can run in 7.5.3 and above.
Last Edit: January 12, 2024, 05:10 by MTT
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #9 on: January 12, 2024, 05:08
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getting a headless 540c to use with a multi-scan apple 13" CRT from 1993 plan on throwing a bunch 1984-1994 software on it to experience how it would have worked when new with software that was already around when it was new that and ill get final fantasy vi for my super famicom (japanese snes) this april i currently use Acrobat 7.0.3 on my G4 Powerbook 15 early 2005 along with iLife 06 and Mac OSX 10.4.4 (which i updated to yesterday using the combo updater) mostly to read old strategy guides for games i play here's what im currently playing via BoyCott Advance fyi http://revontulet.org/2024/01/12/ed1171b97ad840b1ae5060d87280cb40.jpg
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #10 on: January 12, 2024, 10:51
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Before this thread goes wholly astray I'd like to know if anyone here has a serious interest in my procedures for downversioning a PDF file on Linux? Because even so I worked out most of the kinks by now, the resulting statements are rather complex and will require some explaining, if people are meant to understand what's going on there. But writing all that sheeyit up makes little sense if no one wants to crank up a Linux machine or *nix based Mac over it.
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Knezzen
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Administrator 512 MB  Posts: 608 Village idiot
Reply #11 on: January 12, 2024, 12:27
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How does MacGhostView stack up, 68040? http://www.kiffe.com/macghostview.html
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #12 on: January 12, 2024, 14:18
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Well Kneezen, that is GS v6.1. The 6.x release started in 2000, that's almost 25 years behind the curve of present day PDF releases. Whereas version 9.x is barely 2-3 years old. So it definetly includes all the extensions introduced into PDF with v1.4 (2001) to v2.0 (2020). No use trying to preserve information the PDF interpreter can't even interpret. For example, right now I am downversioning a whole bunch of PDFs that never gave me anything but funny dots on AcroReader 3. Turns out they referenced fonts unknown to the system but the font info itself couldn't be read by v3 of the Reader. So, instead of complaining or trying to substitute those absente fonts, it just drew me weird circles. Yet if GhostScript couldn't read that font info either, I'd just get more weirdness as a result. But so I am replacing all missing fonts with valid ones, have them included in the resulting PDF and viola: I can read the darn thing in 68k!
Last Edit: January 12, 2024, 14:22 by 68040
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #13 on: January 14, 2024, 08:07
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Interesting one! I for one would love to see the process documented, we could also put it on our Tutorials section on the front page maybe? The best way would be to run this on a server though, with the ability for people to upload a "too modern" PDF file from their retro machines and have it converted backwards to Acrobat 3 or 4 compatible versions. Hmmm....that would be a nice service to add to System 7 Today, wouldn't it?
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #14 on: January 14, 2024, 08:55
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@Bolkonskij hopefully acrobat 2.1 also! for us lower end users who need to open 50-150 page documents and thus need more free memory
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