PPC users please read the why only intel section below.
What is PDFConvert.app
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PDFConvert.app is a simple application that attempts to function as front end to pdftotext and pdftops from the xpdf package (See xpdf below). I assume that someone is porting a real pdf viewer to Rhapsody, this is just a stop gap measure to allow me to look at the docs. You can have it, and do with it as you please.
xpdf
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See the README.xpdf included with this distribution. xpdf is a pdf viewer for the x-windows system. It is freely available and distributed by Derek B. Noonburg at derekn@aimnet.com. The web page for xpdf is http://www.aimnet.com/~derekn/xpdf/. Derek has graciously allowed me to bundle a binary of pdftops and pdftotext with PDFConvert.app. Please visit Derek's sight and let him know you appreciate the software.
pdftops and pdftotext
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All PDFConvert.app does is provide a gui for running these applications (which do exactly as their names suggest, they convert pdf into either postscript or text). PDFConvert.app will also open pdf files with a double click in workspace, and then by default convert them to postscript and open them with your postscript viewer. These applications seem to handle the pdf docs on Rhapsody pretty well.
This is a hack, this is only hack, I repeat this is a hack
I know anothers are writing pdf viewers, (Hey omni where is OmniPDF for Intel?????). This is just a hack to allow me to see the .pdf files included with Rhapsody. If you wanna wait for the "real" viewers, fine by me, but don't send me flames saying that this app is slow, buggy, blew up my system or whatever.
Distributing PDFConvert
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You have the source, if you wanna make it better, please feel free. All I ask is that you leave the README that I write alone and include both this README and the README.xpdf with each distribution. Please let me know if you are going to re-release PDFConvert and it would be nice of you to let Derek know as well. PDFConvert is Copyright 1998 Eric Peyton. xpdf, pdftops and pdftotext are copyright 1997 Derek B. Noonburg. Please distribute source with every release of PDFConvert.app. Please read the README.xpdf and follow Derek's restrictions on xpdf distribution. Thanks.
Why only Intel
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I attempted to compile this both -arch ppc and -arch i386. The i386 compile went fine, however the ppc compile resulted in the following output
Gfx.cc:222: Internal compiler error.
Gfx.cc:222: Please submit a full bug report to `bug-next@next.com'
I can find nothing wrong in the code that would cause this problem, however I rarely use c++ so I might not notice alot of things.
I have submitted a bug report, with additional information. If a ppc user wants to go get the source from Derek's site and compile both pdftops and pdftotext, please submit them to me and I'll make sure that it gets into the distribution.
