POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Today's venom: Acrobat Server Time
5 Sep 2024 17:18:45 EDT (-0400)
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From: scott
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 09:23:37
Message: <4a48c059$1@news.povray.org>
> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be 
> easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.

Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it really 
hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.  I always 
wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 09:25:00
Message: <web.4a48bfccc3f10ba5fd99d9e0@news.povray.org>
Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> > Just when you thought your day couldn't get any worse... it does.
> >
> > I now have to phone a lady who doesn't speak propper English and make
> > her PC work. Oh, did I mention? She's in a different country...
> >
> > Yay, me. :'{
>
> I'm almost glad the number doesn't work... :-P
>
> Still, I don't suppose there's any way I can realistically get rid of
> this person.

I bet that's what the Call Centres in India say about us :)

Stephen


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 09:36:55
Message: <4a48c377$1@news.povray.org>
>> I'm almost glad the number doesn't work... :-P
>>
>> Still, I don't suppose there's any way I can realistically get rid of
>> this person.
> 
> I bet that's what the Call Centres in India say about us :)

Hmm. Probably.

Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak 
English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if 
that wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out. 
Perfect. :-S


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 09:38:37
Message: <4a48c3dd@news.povray.org>
>> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would 
>> be easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.
> 
> Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it 
> really hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.

Pretty dumb really. Especially when PDF has so many enhancements over PS 
that should make this kind of thing really easy.

> I 
> always wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...

In principle it shouldn't be too hard.

In fact, in principle you can ask Ghostscript to convert the PDF into 
PostScript and edit the thing by hand. In practice, this turns out to 
be...rather hard.

(Not many people know this, but you *can* in fact write PDF files using 
only Notepad. You'd have to be insane to try it though...)


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From: scott
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 09:43:31
Message: <4a48c503@news.povray.org>
> Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak 
> English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if that 
> wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out. Perfect. 
> :-S

Even better is when their OS isn't in English, then the fun really starts 
over the phone :-)


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 09:50:02
Message: <4a48c68a$1@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
>> Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak 
>> English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if 
>> that wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out. 
>> Perfect. :-S
> 
> Even better is when their OS isn't in English, then the fun really 
> starts over the phone :-)

The fun is, she couldn't log in because the laptop had a UK keyboard. So 
we sent her a French keyboard. Ah, but the laptop still thinks it has a 
UK keyboard, so now the keys pressed don't even correspond to what the 
keyboard types!

Of course, she changed the regional settings - but only for her account. 
That means the Windows login prompt still has the wrong keymap.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Can my day get any worse??

I said CAN MY DAY GET ANY WORSE?!? DO YOU HEAR ME MURPHY!?


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 10:00:00
Message: <web.4a48c7bfc3f10ba5fd99d9e0@news.povray.org>
"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be
> > easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.
>
> Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it really
> hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.  I always
> wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...

I thought that was the purpose of PDF. Not being able to change documents,
unless you have the original, is perfect for version control.

Stephen


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 10:00:01
Message: <web.4a48c844c3f10ba5fd99d9e0@news.povray.org>
Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> I'm almost glad the number doesn't work... :-P
> >>
> >> Still, I don't suppose there's any way I can realistically get rid of
> >> this person.
> >
> > I bet that's what the Call Centres in India say about us :)
>
> Hmm. Probably.
>
> Well anyway, I just had a conversation with somebody who doesn't speak
> English very well, and doesn't know how to operate a computer. As if
> that wasn't bad enough, the phone line kept repeatedly cutting out.
> Perfect. :-S

Welcome to my world ;)


Stephen


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 10:03:23
Message: <4a48c9ab@news.povray.org>
>>> I stupidly assumed that since we have PDF editing software, it would be
>>> easy to, you know, edit the PDF file.
>> Yeh you'd think so, but for some reason they seem to want to make it really
>> hard/impossible to actually modify any detail on a PDF page.  I always
>> wondered myself if there was any software capable of doing this...
> 
> I thought that was the purpose of PDF. Not being able to change documents,
> unless you have the original, is perfect for version control.

On the contrary, you can build PDF "forms" which can be filled in 
electronically and returned. (But only if you have the server-side 
technology. Isn't that nice?) The whole marketing for Adobe Acrobat 
talks about "collaboration" and exchanging data and vivid, "alive" 
documents.

Adobe Acrobat can indeed alter several aspects of a PDF file. Just not 
any of the *useful* ones...

We use a 3rd-party product for version control. The files you get from 
it might be editable, but the "definitive version" is whichever one 
exists in the document control system, so it doesn't matter.


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Today's venom: Acrobat
Date: 29 Jun 2009 10:52:45
Message: <4a48d53d$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:

> Isn't technology wonderful?
> 
> Can my day get any worse??
> 
> I said CAN MY DAY GET ANY WORSE?!? DO YOU HEAR ME MURPHY!?

He heard me.

I was just asked to set up a web presentation. Do you think I could get 
the God-damned thing to work?!

First I turned on the laptop, and it spent 20 minutes updating itself. 
So rather than having half an hour to get it going, I had 10 minutes. By 
this point all the attendees have turned up and their waiting to know 
when it'll be working - so no pressure or anything. Not that I've ever 
used Live Meeting before. But will it connect the desktop? No, no, and, 
er, NO.

So we decide to give up (they don't want to keep the other sites 
waiting), and everybody goes home. 3 minutes later, Live Meeting works 
perfectly. WTF?

WHY DOES MY LIFE HATE ME?! >_<


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