PDF Hacks

This book is a god-send for those of us who have to struggle with the often frustrating world of PDF documents on our computers. I was completely confused until I dug into this manual, which is relatively easy for a novice to understand. It has been a great help to me in find answers to problems I had with using PDF on a daily basis. I would highly recommend it.

With PDF files everywhere from web sites to help files, sooner or later you will run into a situation where you need to do something to a PDF file. For me the first time I realized I needed to do something I could not was when I needed to take one and convert it to a Word format so I could quickly outline the high points to study for a certification exam. After several hours I finally got it into a text file thanks to a web site that did the conversion. But even then I lost the tables, illustrations, etc. How to do that is one of the hacks included in this book. I wish it were printed a few years ago because it would have made my life easier. After testing that hack I browsed through the book and kept finding myself asking "You can do that with a PDF file?" There are a lot of good tips in this book from making Acrobat startup faster, to converting PDF files, to automatic timed scrolling for easy reading, to creating a PDF using Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, Perl, HTML, PHP, and Java. With page after page of coding, this is a tremendously useful book for anyone who wants to create or edit PDF files or change the way Acrobat works with files. PDF Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools is very highly recommended and will be put on my shelf reserved for books I want to be able to access quickly.

Normally when I read a Hacks book, I'm already familiar with the core technology and I'm looking for little tricks. In this case, PDF Hacks by Sid Steward showed me far more about PDF technology than I knew existed. Chapter List: Consuming PDF, Managing a Collection; Authoring and Self-Publishing: Hacking Outside the PDF; Creating PDF and Other Editions; Manipulating PDF Files; Dynamic PDF; Scripting and Programming Acrobat; Index I'm probably like many others when it comes to PDF files. I read them with Adobe Reader, and that's about it. I don't use Adobe Acrobat, so my main experience in creating PDF files is to print to PDF using the software from www.pdf995.com. I didn't have a clue there was a much to PDF files as there is. I learned how to speed up the processing of starting Adobe Reader by removing unnecessary plugins (Hack #4). I learned how to use some open source software to manipulate PDF files nearly on par with running the full Acrobat program. I found you can even program games using the PDF scripting language! Very cool stuff... As usual, O'Reilly has come up with another outstanding Hacks title. This one is worth reading in order to enhance your PDF skills.

I've been waiting for this book for a while, and it has been well worth the wait. The coverage of PDFs from the client side to publication side is fantastic. He gives tips on how to tune your PDFs, both from the technical perspective and from the design perspective. Other hacks show how to migrate your content out of PDF into various forms. Still other hacks show how take data from unusual sources (like raw XML) and turn it into PDF. He even covers XSL-FO in the most concise effective form I have seen. I really enjoyed this book. It's well written and uses graphics effectively. Almost all of the hacks (save the first introductory few) are both valuable and unique. In addition he teaches you techniques that can extend beyond the basic nature of the hack. I highly recommend this book for anyone using PDF to publish content. In addition I recommend the book for those looking to self-publish, or those looking for information on how to migrate their content to different content media (web, PDF, palm, etc.)

Perhaps your experience with PDF is the same as mine. Mainly, to print files in this format. But Steward shows an entire neat little world of functionality hidden in PDF. While it may not have the obvious simplicity of HTML, the book shows many ways to make and edit such files. For example, Steward shows how to have URLs link to specific points inside a PDF document. So if you are maintaining a website that has PDFs, you can do far better than most, by having links not just to the entire documents, but to pertinant locations within. A competitive advantage. The great majority of PDFs accessible on the web require you to view the entire document, for find what you're looking for. You should do better. Steward also shows a logical inverse. How to embed standard URLs inside a PDF. Knowing both capabilities means a fuller integration of PDFs inside your website. It also turns out that much of what the book discusses can be done with free editing tools, at least on linux/unix machines. Good book for demystifying PDF.