Does abi have the necessary hooks to be able to *scan* documents into it? And/or can abi use an arbitrary image file, perhaps one scanned in or the rasterized pdf, as the background/"paper" on which it does its thing of putting the "ink"? That way one would have the combination of word-processor-style features with other parts of the document those word-processing ways are not allowed to alter.
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 02:50:10PM -0800, Dom > Lachowicz wrote: > > > > Many have identified this need. It's a difficult > and > > problematic problem space, and one that Adobe is > very > > fierce about protecting, traditionally. > > Yeah, well. Bread and butter and all that stuff. > > > Well, considering my last job was > www.appligent.com > > and I'm currently doing contract work for > > www.pdfsages.com, I think I know a bit about the > > topic. > > My appologies. I did not mean to sound at all > authoritative about > this subject as I am anything but. I guess I was > just throwing out > ideas given the use of tools for PDF rendering. > > > Rasterizing the PDF to a PNG, and then importing > the > > PNG is *trivial*. > > :-) > > > Getting meaningful structured layout > > out of a PDF's contents is much much harder (i.e. > > fonts, text, images, etc...). > > OK. So, I'd be happy to rasterize it then. The > rasterization does > not even have to look terribly good. I am happy to > print in two > passes. One to print the PDF, from say acrobat, and > the second to > just "fill in the blanks" (i.e. from abiword). > Abiword just has to > show me some decent semblance of the document so > that I know where to > place my text. > > > Sending PNGs to your > > printer sucks. PNGs of text is also a sub-optimal > > model for a word-processor to follow. > > Right, but even if the wordprocessor were to print > the PDF in raster > format (assuming it was rasterized at a decent > enough resolution), the > text that the wordprocessor adds would not have to > be rasterized, no? > > > A word-processor > > is a much different beast than a "typewriter with > a > > monitor" model you've used. > > It is, indeed. But does it have to be? It places > text on paper. I > don't mean to simplify what a word processor does, > just one possible > simple function of it. > > b. > > -- > Brian J. Murrell > > ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body.
