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Last week, I wasted about 20 minutes trying to fill out a form.
The problem is simple. The form contains a box where I'm supposed to
write a file path. But the pathname goes through 5 subdirectories,
ending in a 33-character filename. I don't know about you, but I can't
write that much text in a space less than 10cm across.
Of course, a computer can easily print that much text in such a space,
in a legible typeface. What it /can't/ easily do is print that text over
the top of the printed form.
The next result is that I had to undertake the ridiculous operation of
printing the form, printing the text to go on the form, and then cutting
the text out - with a pair of scissors - and gluing it to the form, and
photocopying it onto another sheet of paper (to be sure the glued
portion doesn't fall off or something).
All of this seems very silly to me. The printer is perfectly capable of
printing the final result. It's just that the computer software does not
allow me to.
(About the best that I could do would be to load the PDF file containing
the form, load it into Ghostscript, convert it into a bitmap, print the
text I want to a Postscript printer and redirect to file [thereby
creating a PS file], load that into Ghostscript, convert it to a bitmap,
and then use a bitmap editor to combine the two [huge] bitmaps together,
before finally sending that to the printer. That's a *hell* of a lot of
work for something this trivial.)
I seriously wonder why nobody has come up with software to composite two
overprint two PDFs. (Actually, it seems to be impossible to edit the PDF
files in any way, except the move whole pages around or edit metadata.
It seems daft to me that, in the modern age, this is still such a problem.
(On the other hand, I suppose if I could convince the people in charge
to make the PDF form into a *PDF form*, then I could fill it out
electronically...)
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On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:08:12 +0200, Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Last week, I wasted about 20 minutes trying to fill out a form.
> I seriously wonder why nobody has come up with software to composite t
wo
t
> overprint two PDFs. (Actually, it seems to be impossible to edit the P
DF
> files in any way, except the move whole pages around or edit metadata.
>
> It seems daft to me that, in the modern age, this is still such a
Acrobat Professional can save the pdf as a .doc
My preference would be to open the pdf in Illustrator or CorelDraw and
then insert the text.
-Nekar Xenos-
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Invisible wrote:
> (On the other hand, I suppose if I could convince the people in charge
> to make the PDF form into a *PDF form*, then I could fill it out
> electronically...)
What bugs me more is when I get forms (usually from the government) as PDF
files that say "you're allowed to fill this out, but you can't save your
changes." Because, you know, there's no way I'd want an electronic copy of
what I sent to the government about my taxes last year or anything.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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On 01/12/2011 11:08 AM, Invisible wrote:
> I seriously wonder why nobody has come up with software to composite two
> overprint two PDFs. (Actually, it seems to be impossible to edit the PDF
> files in any way, except the move whole pages around or edit metadata.
You can actually edit pdf files with Foxit PDF Editor,
only the free version adds a mark on edited pages.
The best tool I've found so far is PDF-XChange Viewer
(http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1436).
The free version has a textbox annotation tool (and more),
that was sufficient to fill in a huge multi-pages pdfs.
It also lets to export and import the text of annotations.
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On 12-1-2011 12:08, Invisible wrote:
> Last week, I wasted about 20 minutes trying to fill out a form.
>
> The problem is simple. The form contains a box where I'm supposed to
> write a file path. But the pathname goes through 5 subdirectories,
> ending in a 33-character filename. I don't know about you, but I can't
> write that much text in a space less than 10cm across.
would tinyurl or something similar have worked?
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On 13/01/2011 09:44 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 12-1-2011 12:08, Invisible wrote:
>> Last week, I wasted about 20 minutes trying to fill out a form.
>>
>> The problem is simple. The form contains a box where I'm supposed to
>> write a file path. But the pathname goes through 5 subdirectories,
>> ending in a 33-character filename. I don't know about you, but I can't
>> write that much text in a space less than 10cm across.
>
> would tinyurl or something similar have worked?
No. It's not a URL, it's the pathname of a file on one of our servers.
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On 14-1-2011 10:16, Invisible wrote:
> On 13/01/2011 09:44 PM, andrel wrote:
>> On 12-1-2011 12:08, Invisible wrote:
>>> Last week, I wasted about 20 minutes trying to fill out a form.
>>>
>>> The problem is simple. The form contains a box where I'm supposed to
>>> write a file path. But the pathname goes through 5 subdirectories,
>>> ending in a 33-character filename. I don't know about you, but I can't
>>> write that much text in a space less than 10cm across.
>>
>> would tinyurl or something similar have worked?
>
> No. It's not a URL, it's the pathname of a file on one of our servers.
I was aware of that. I tried to ask if something like:
http://tinyurl.com/6ednez
would have worked.
In my case not on this machine, but a comparable service might have worked.
Or put differently: a path on a machine can be turned into a URL.
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andrel wrote:
> Or put differently: a path on a machine can be turned into a URL.
In all honesty, I have a hard time understanding why in the world you'd put
the name of a file local to your machine onto a printed form in the first place.
The only vague idea I can come up with is that it was a printed request for
IT administration to do something with the file while it's on your machine,
in which case it's actually the name you're filling out and not the contents
of the file.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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On 15-1-2011 0:33, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Or put differently: a path on a machine can be turned into a URL.
>
> In all honesty, I have a hard time understanding why in the world you'd
> put the name of a file local to your machine onto a printed form in the
> first place.
me too, but that was outside the scope of my remark.
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On 14/01/2011 11:33 PM, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Or put differently: a path on a machine can be turned into a URL.
>
> In all honesty, I have a hard time understanding why in the world you'd
> put the name of a file local to your machine onto a printed form in the
> first place.
Which part of the word "server" did you miss?
I have to periodically perform a file restore from tape to prove that
the backup system actually works. As part of this, I have to note down
which file I restored. The nearest convenient file is quite deeply buried.
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